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THE 



IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 

BETWEEN 

LABOR AND CAPITAL: 

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE CHIEF CAUSES AND 

RESULTS OF THE LATE CIVIL WAR IN THE 

UNITED STATES, 

AS PRESENTED IM 

THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

TO 

ADOLPHE GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC'S 
HISTORY OF THE WORKING AND BURGHER CLASSES, 

IN WHICH THE 
ORIGIN, NATURE, AND OBJECTS OF THE MUCH CALUMNIATED 

FRENCH COMMUNE 

ARE HISTORICALLY EXPLAINED. ^^^-TTrTT" 

. •> 
'COPYRIGHT 




^fsm^p- ' 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

819 & 821 MARKET STREET, 

1872. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

STBRBOTVPBD BV J. PAGAN & SON, PHIIJIDBU>HIA. 



07- h^i^s 



^ran$Ial^r'$ |)diali<rtt. 



TO THE 
WORKING AND BURGHER CLASSES OF AMERICA, 

UNDER WHICH DESIGNATION I INCLUDE, NOT ONLY "LABORERS, MECHANICS, 

HUSBANDMEN, AND MERCHANTS IN GENERAL," BUT ALSO LAWYERS, 

PHYSICIANS, MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL, AND ALL OTHERS 

OF THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS, — ALL, WHO LIVE, 

AND SEEK TO GROW RICH, BY THE FRUITS 

OF THEIR OWN LABOR AND 

INDUSTRY, 

WHETHER OF THE HEAD, 

OR OF THE HAND; AND NOT BY THE 

"SUBTLE AND ARTFUL FISCAL CONTRIVANCES" 

OF MODERN CLASS LEGISLATION, NOR BY PUBLIC OFFICE 

AND PUBLIC PLUNDER, — THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY 

timteS. 

By the translator. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



FOR several years prior to the Civil War in America, the 
late Stephen Colwell, of Philadelphia, withdrawinfj 
from active business, had shut himself up in his library, devot- 
ing himself principally to the study of Political Economy, on 
which subject his work on " The Ways and Means of Pay- 
ment " is, perhaps, one of the ablest ever given to the public. 
Absorbed in this study from his own personal standpoint, 
that of a retired merchant and manufacturer, he gave little 
attention to matters of general politics occurring around him. 

The news of the " Gt^ii Rebellion " reached him in the 
privacy of his library, and he again emerged into active lite. 
lielieving, like many other able and good men at the North, 
that the war was a " slaveholders' rebellion." and that every- 
thing should be sacrificed to the preservation of the Union, 
lie took an active part in su.staining the Government. By 
degrees he became, under the excitements of the war, a thor- 
ough-going Abolitionist. He took great interest, and was 
one of the most active agents and liberal contributors, in 
sending teachers South to instruct the negroes. 

When the war was over, he went to Paris, and again shut 
himself up in the libraries of that city. There he found De 
Cassagnac's " History of the Laboring and Burgher Classes." 
Struck with the great erudition of the work, and its peculiar 
views, he went to a book-dealer, and gave orders for the pur- 
chase of every copy that could be found for sale in Paris. It 
was out of print, and he could only secure three copies. 



VJll TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

I met him in Philadelphia in 1868. In a brief interview, i^^ 
which I gave him my views of the causes and results of the 
war, he paid me the compliment of saying that I had studied 
and understood the subject better than any one whom he 
had met ; that he had brought this book from Paris to have 
it translated and published in the United States ; that he was 
too old to do it himself, and had been looking for some one 
qualified for the task. He urged me to do it, and gave me 
the book. • 

Perhaps it is due to myself, and to my old preceptors 
of Georgetown College and the University of Virginia, to 
whose thorough training I am indebted for whatever merit 
there may be in the translation, that I should disarm the 
critics in advance, by an apology for any errors. Most of 
this work has been done hurriedly, under the pressure of 
much business and many cares, of my own and of others, at 
my home in Georgia, without access to dictionaries or books 
of reference, to compensate for twenty years' disuse of the 
Latin and Greek, and fifteen years' disuse of the French lan- 
guage ; and I have sought always to give the author's exact 
meaning, sometimes perhaps sacrificing classic English to the 
exigencies of a close translation from the French. 

This History was published in Paris in 1838, and is now for 
the first time offered to the American public. Heretofore it 
has been accessible to a very few only of the very few Amer- 
ican readers of this class of French works. But through these 
few, some of the author's ideas, very soon after their publica- 
tion in Paris, began to permeate into the American mind, and 
in course of time they became part of the political creed of a 
great party in the United States, resulting in the greatest and 
bloodiest civil war of recorded time. 

De Cassagnac starts out with the declaration that his book 
is one of history, and not of politics. Evidently he was a 
student; poring over musty tomes ; delighting in books, old 
and new ; absorbed in the solution of the facts and philosophy 



translator's preface. ix 

of history. Certainly, so far as depends on ancient and mod- 
ern law, history, and literature, he has in his seven years of 
preparatory study treated his subject exhaustively, and, as an 
historian, faithfully. But he probably little dreamed that in 
less than a quarter of a century, and on another continent, 
his ideas would take a new form of expression in the dogma 
that " free labor is cheaper than slave labor," and drench that 
continent in blood. 

De Cassagnac dedicates his work to M. Guizot. Guizot 
M^as not a mere closet student. He was a statesman, intent 
on giving to the facts of history a gloss to suit the political 
purposes of the royal master, whose throne he sought to 
establish. He was the trusted minister of King Louis Phi- 
lippe, whose every thought was directed to the perpetuation 
of his dynasty, and the repression of the "fierce democracie" 
of France. A translation of Guizot's Lectures on the History 
of Civilization was published in this country in 1838, about 
the time that De Cassagnac's book appeared in Paris. Those 
lectures were prepared for a special purpose : to strengthen 
the throne of Louis Philippe, by presenting to PVance cen- 
tralization and monarchy, as represented by the Orleans dyn- 
asty, in their most attractive lights and colors. Guizot taxed 
his great abilities to the utmost to prove that " zvJicncvcr the 
reflection or the imagination of men has especially turned toward 
the contemplation or study of legitimate sovereignty, and of its 
essential qualities, it has inclined tozvard monarchy" and that 
" republicanism, tmder the most favorable circumstances, does not 
contain the principles of progress, duration, and extension." 

Perhaps for the reason that the Americans are a more 
book-reading people than the French, it is probable that M. 
Guizot had more readers — and it is not going too far to say, 
more converts — in the United States than in France; and 
what was written with special reference to a political effect 
in France, exerted a potent influence in bringing about the 
civil war in America. M. Guizot has lived to see a great 
2 



X TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

party in the United States, under the name of that repub- 
licanism which he sought to disparage in France, preparing 
the way for that centralization, which, to use his language, 
" naturally and as if by instinct," inclines the minds of men 
to monarchy. Lest any of my readers should be startled at 
this assertion, and a prejudice be thereby aroused to hinder 
a dispassionate reception of what more I have to say, I ask, 
have they ever heard Mr. Sumner's lecture on "Are we a 
Nation?" and read M. Guizot's Lecture XL, on the " Central- 
ization of Nations and Governments ? " 

Lest any of my readers may have fought under Grant or 
Sherman, and should throw down this book in disgust at the 
bare intimation that they carried fire and sword and famine 
into the South, in the interests of centralization and mon- 
archy, let me here quote briefly from M. Guizot's eleventh 
lecture : 

" Europe, however, was then (at the close of the fourteenth 
century) very far from understanding her own state, such as 
I have now endeavored to explain it to you. She did not 
know distinctly what she required, or what she was in search 
of, yet .set about endeavoring to supply her wants as if she 
knew perfectly what they were. When the fourteenth cen- 
tury had expired, after the failure of every attempt at political 
organization, Europe entered, naturally and as if by instinct, 
into the path of centralization. It is the characteristic of the 
fifteenth century that it constantly tended to this result ; that 
it endeavored to create general interests and general ideas ; 
to raise the minds of men to more enlarged views; and to 
create, in short, what had not, till then, existed on a great 
scale — nations and governments. 

"The actual accomplishment of this change belongs to the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it was in the fif- 
teenth that it was prepared. It is this preparation, this silent 
and hidden process of centralization, both in the social rela- 
tions and in the opinions of men — a process accomplished, 



translator's preface. xi 

without premeditation or design, by the natural course of 
events — that we have now to make the subject of our inquiry. 

" It is thus that man advances in the execution of a plan 
which he has not conceived, and of which he is not even 
aware. He is the free, intelligent artificer of a work, which is 
not his own. He does not perceive or comprehend it till it 
manifests itself by external appearances and real results; and 
even then he comprehends it very imperfectly. It is through 
his means, however, and by the development of his intelli- 
gence and freedom, that it is accomplished. Conceive a 
great machine, the design of which is centred in a single 
mind, though its various parts are intrusted to different work- 
men, separated from and strangers to each other. No one of 
them understands the work as a whole, nor the general re- 
sults, which he concurs in producing; but every one executes, 
with intelligence and freedom, by rational and voluntary acts, 
the particular task assigned to him. It is thus that by the 
hand of man the designs of Providence are wrought out in 
the government of the world. It is thus that the two great 
facts, which are apparent in the history of civilization, come 
to co-exist; on the one hand, those portions of it, which mar 
be considered as fated, or which happen without the control 
of human knowledge or will ; on the other hand, the part 
played in it by the freedom and intelligence of man, and what 
he contributes to it by means of his own judgment and will." 

When the true history of yet recent events shall have been 
written, many, who have been accustomed to believe that 
President Lincoln was the author and father of emancipation. 
will be surprised to learn that to the very last he was averse 
to it, and anxious to prevent the adoption of the Thirteenth 
Amendment to the Constitution, which was carried, not only 
without the concurrence of, but in direct opposition to, his 
judgment and will. When he visited Richmond, immediately 
after the evacuation in 1865, a message from my father. 
General Duff Green, asking an inter\-icw, reached him after 



Xii TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

he had re-embarked and the command had already been 
given to go ahead on the return to Washington. He imme- 
diately stopped the steamer, and waited for my father to come 
aboard. When they met, Mr. Lincoln said, " My dear old 
friend, how are you, and what can I do for you ? " My father 
replied : " Mr. President, I went to see you at Springfield in 
December, i860, at the instance of Mr. Buchanah, and with 
the concurrence of Mr. (Jefferson) Davis, to ask what you were 
willing to do to avert the war. {a) I come now on my own ac- 
count, to ask on what terms you are willing to grant us peace." 
To this Mr. Lincoln said : " If the South want peace, all they 
have to do is to lay down their arms and acknowledge the 
authority of the Government of the United States. I cannot 
recall my Emancipation Proclamations, but I am perfectly will- 
ing that the Supreme Court shall decide them to have been 
unconstitutional, null, and void. If the South do not wish to 
give up their slaves, .let them call their Legislatures together, 
and vote down the Thirteenth Amendment." The result of 
this interview between my father and Mr. Lincoln, followed 
up by another, in which Judge Campbell participated, was 
that General Weitzel was authorized to call the Virginia 
Legislature together, for the twofold purpose — first, of repeal- 
ing the Act of Secession and recognizing the authority of 
the General Government ; and, secondly, of voting down the 
Thirteenth Amendment. On Mr. Lincoln's return to Wash- 
ington, a pressure was brought to bear on him, that forced 
him very reluctantly to cancel the authority given to Gen- 
eral Weitzel to convene the Legislature. It is well known to 
many that Mr. Lincoln was with great difficulty induced to 
-tign the Emancipation Proclamations. Perhaps no disputed 
fact in history is susceptible of clearer proof But few know 
the historical fact that he was avowedly willing, and secretly 
desired, that the Thirteenth Amendment should be defeated. 

{a) See .iccount of General Dufif Green's visit to Mr. Lincoln, in the New York 
Herald, of 8tli January, 1861. 



translator's preface. xiii 

Much has been already, and ably, written on the causes 
that led to the late civil v/ar. The ablest, who have written 
on the subject, are probably the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, 
and Judge Nicholas, of Kentucky, whose views were con- 
densed in a correspondence between them, published in the 
National Intelligencer, in the summer of 1868. Mr. Stephens 
said : 

" Slavery so called, or that legal subordination of the black 
race to the white, which existed in all but one of the States 
when the Union was formed, and in fifteen of them when the 
war began, was unquestionably the occasion of the war, the 
main exciting proximate cause on both sides. But it was not 
the real cause, the causa causans, of it. 

"The war grew out of different and directly opposite views 
as to the nature of the Government of the United States, and 
where, under our system, ultimate sovereign power, or para- 
mount authority, properly resides." 

"The truth is well established that the seceding States 
did not desire war. Very few of the public men in these 
States even expected war." 

The gist of Judge Nicholas's rejoinder was that the ques- 
tion of the right of secession was the real cause of the war ; 
that even a distinct recognition of rights in the Constitution 
could never be used for any available purpose ; because, if at 
any time attempted to be exercised by a weaker portion of 
the country, the only result would be giving the Government 
the trouble of declaring war against and conquering it ; that, 
as a remedy, the right of secession proved unavailable, and 
had to be abandoned ; and that, therefore, expediency and 
policy required that the South should, by a total abnegation, 
deny that there was ever any legitimacy in their assertion of 
that right. 

Mr. Stephens is, and Judge Nicholas was, a man of great 
force and ability. The former writes always in the spirit of 
a great constitutional lawyer and statesman. The argument 



xiv TRANSLATOR S PREFACE, 

of the latter on this occasion amounts simply to an assertion 
of the utter worthlessness of all constitutional guarantees ; 
that might makes right; and that the weaker party, to avoid 
worse punishment, should always submit to whatever condi- 
tions the stronger thought proper to impose. On this occa- 
sion he sank far below himself; for on others he was unques- 
tionably able. But with all deference to such authority, it 
must be said that neither have gone far enough back to dis- 
cover the real causes of the war. Both agree that secession 
was adopted as a peaceful remedy — as a bloodless solution 
of pre-existing questions, involving the alternatives of civil 
war on the one hand, or submission to, what the weaker 
party believed to be, intolerable wrong on the other. How 
then can that be said to have been .the real cause of the war, 
which was only resorted to as a peaceful remedy to prevent 
war? 

We do not understand Mr. Stephens to mean that so many 
valuable lives were sacrificed, such heavy burdens imposed 
on both sections, merely to decide an abstract question of 
constitutional law ; but only that the war would not have 
taken place when it did, if the North, under the lead of Mas- 
sachusetts, had acquiesced //^tv/ in the doctrine of State rights, 
including the right of secession, which Massachusetts asserted 
in the war of 1812, and on the acquisition of Louisiana. 

The real causes of the war existed long before the right of 
secession was thought of in the South ; long before it was 
asserted by Massachusetts ; long before the Constitution or 
the Union was formed ; long before New England began to 
grow rich by the importation and sale of negro slaves ; and 
they still exist in full force, now that slavery has been abol- 
ished and the right of secession suppressed. They were — 

1st. The irrepressible conflict between monarchy and de- 
mocracy. 

2d. The irrepressible desire of capital to cheapen labor. 

From the beginning, the New England mind inclined to 



translator's preface. XV 

monarchy, with established orders of nobility. Shortly be- 
fore the adoption of the Constitution, John Adams, their 
greatest and favorite leader, with as much ability, with more 
zeal, and with less disguise than M. Guizot, published a de- 
fence of the New England ideas of government, from which 
the following are extracts : 

" The people in all nations are naturally divided into two 
sorts, the gentlemen and the simple men, a word which is 
here chosen to signify the common people. By the common 
people we mean laborers, mechanics, husbandmen, and mer- 
chants in general, who pursue their occupations and industry 
without any knowledge in liberal arts and sciences, or in any- 
thing but their own trades and pursuits." (See John Adams's 
Defence of the Constitution, vol. iii., p. 458.) 

"The distinctions. of poor and rich afe as necessary in 
states of considerable extent (such as the United States) as 
labor and good government : the poor are destined to labor, 
and the rich, by the advantages of education, independence, 
and leisure, are qualified for superior stations." (Ibid., p. 360.) 

" A nobility must and will exist. . . . Descent from certain 
parents and inheritance of certain houses, lands, and other 
visible objects (titles) will eternally have such an influence 
over the affections and imaginations of the people, as no arts 
and institutions will control. Time zvill come, if it is not mnu, 
that these circumstances will have more influence over great 
numbers of minds than any considerations of virtue and tal- 
ents." (Vol. iii., p. 377.) 

" The whole history of Rome shows that corruption began 
with the people sooner than the Senate." (Vol. iii., p. 327.) 

" Powerful and crafty underminers have nowhere such rare 
sport as in a simple democracy, or single popular assembly. 
Nowhere, not in the completest despotism, does human na- 
ture show itself so completely depraved, so nearly approach- 
ing an equal mixture of brutality and devilishism, as in the 



Xvi TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

last stages of such a democracy, and in the beginning of des- 
potism, which always succeeds it." (Ibid., vol. ii., p. 329.) 

" It is the true policy of the common people to place the 
whole executive power in the hands of one man." (Vol. iii., 
p. 460.) 

" By kings and kingly power is meant the executive power 
in a single person." (Vol. iii., p. 461.) 

" There is not in the whole Roman history so happy a 
period as this under their kings ; ... in short, Rome was 
never so well governed or so happy." (Vol. iii., p. 305.) 

" I only contend that the English Constitution is, in theory, 
the most stupendous fabric of human invention. ... In future 
ages, if the present States become a great nation, their own 
feelings and good sense will dictate to them what to do ; they 
may make transitit^s to a nearer resemblance of the British 
Constitution." (Vol. i., pp. 70, 71.) 

" It (the aristocracy) is a body of men which contains the 
greatest collection of virtue and character in a free govern- 
ment; is the brightest ornament and glory of the nation, and 
may always be made the greatest blessing of society, if it be 
judiciously managed in the Constitution." (Vol. iii., p. 1 16.) 

" Mankind have universally discovered that chance was 
preferable to a corrupt choice, and have trusted Providence 
rather than themselves. First magistrates and senators had 
better be made hereditary at once, than that the people should 
be universally debauched and bribed." (Vol. iii., p. 283.) 

Such were the ideas to which the reflection and imagina- 
tion of the leading men of New England inclined them at the 
time of the adoption of that democratic form of government, 
the denunciation of which as " a league with death and cove- 
nant with hell," has been in vogue in New England down to 
the time when that trausition period, anticipated by their great 
leader, commenced by amending the Constitution. 

That these ideas have not lost ground in New England, 
but have been spreading to the Middle and Western States, 



translator's preface. xvii 

appears by the following extract from the Monthly Gossip of 
Lippincott's Magazine for February, 1868: 

" The Revue de Quinzame, of October last, has a paper on 
Harvard University and Yale College, which shows a con- 
siderable knowledge of the subject. The writer says, that 
while the system and the division of studies are, in the main, 
the same as those of the English universities, yet important 
improvements have been introduced from time to time ; and 
he truly remarks that, while Harvard has a certain aristo- 
cratic tone, in Yale the forms and the prevailing ideas are 
democratic, [a] 

" The proposition recently made in Congress to tax the use 
of armorial bearings on carriages and household furniture is 
an eminently proper one, though it may perhaps cause some 
amusement at our expense in monarchical countries. If 
enacted into a law, the impost ought to yield a handsome 
return from New England, if one may judge from the fact 
that the Heraldic Journal, published by Wiggin & Lunt. Bos- 
ton, has completed its third volume. A similar periodical in 
England, the Herald and Genealogist, edited by John Gough 
NichoUs, has also just completed its third volume, in the 
course of which there are five articles on ' Anglo-American 
genealogy and coat-armor.' The New England Historical and 
Genealogical Register has just issued its twenty-first volume, 
having started in 1847 ; and it is a curious fact that the New 
England Historic-Genealogical Society is the first one, par- 
ticularly devoted to the pedigrees of families, ever formed. 
The interest which Americans take in this subject is also 
evinced by the increasing number of family histories which 
are issuing from the press. Heretofore these works were 

{a) The truth of this statement, as to Harvard, is unquestionable ; but if it be 
true that any democratic ideas prevail at Yale, the explanation of that phenome- 
non is to be found in the fact that, until recently, Yale has been mainly supported 
by students from the South and West, while Han-ard was altogether sustained 
by New England. 



XVUl TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

mainly confined to New England and New York, which were 
settled before Pennsylvania and the Western States ; but they 
are now appearing in other parts of the Union. Histories of 
the Sharpless, Darlington, Levering, Du Bois, Cope, Mont- 
gomery, Shippen, Wolfe, Coleman, and Hill families have 
been printed in this State, and those of the Buchanan and 
Sill families in Ohio. We hear that the pedigree of the Went- 
worth family is about to be published in Chicago ; and that 
Mr. D. Williams Patterson, of Pittston, Pennsylvania, has in 
preparation the genealogy of the Grant family, which will 
include the pedigree of General Ulysses S. Grant. It appears 
that his ancestor was Matthew Grant, whose name first occurs 
on the town records of Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 3, 
1633. Noah, the grandfather of the General, born in Con- 
necticut, June 20, 1748, and the sixth generation in descent 
from the Dorchester emigrant, came from Coventry, Connec- 
ticut, to Pennsylvania, after the Revolutionary War, and set- 
tled here. The Rev. Mr. Headley's statement, that the ances- 
tor of Grant settled in Pennsylvania on his arrival in this 
country, is therefore erroneous. Although very frequently 
indeed these pedigrees are fit subjects of ridicule, some link 
in a chain being assumed without proof, or some sign of van- 
ity being exhibited by the degenerate offspring of worthy 
sires ; yet at the bottom of all this there is, on the whole, 
a healthy family-pride, which benefits society, and to which 
no one, who comes of virtuous and honorable parentage, is 
insensible." 

Speaking of an elective chief-magistrate, Mr. Adams said, 
" This hazardous experiment the Americans have tried, and 
if elections are soberly made, it may answer very well ; but 
if parties, factions, drunkenness, bribes, armies, and delirium 
come in, as they have always done, sooner or later, to embroil 
and decide everything, the people must again have recourse 
to conventions, and find a remedy for this ' hazardous experi- 
ment.' Neither philosophy nor policy has yet discovered any 



translator's preface. xix 

other cure than by prolonging the duration of the first magis- 
trate and senators. The evil may be lessened and postponed 
by elections for longer periods of years, until they become 
for life ; and if this is not found an adequate remedy, there 
will remain no other but to make them hereditar}'." (Vol. 
iii., p. 296.) 

Observe that Mr. Adams also said, " The time zvill come, if 
it is not now ; " and among the signs of the time he enumer- 
ated " bribes, armies, and delirium." In this connection, the 
organization of the " Grand Army of the Republic," and the 
establishment of the Imperialist newspaper in New York, 
just after the war, to test whether the time had come for the 
realization of these views, by making General Grant emperor, 
are signs of the time not to be overlooked. The " Grand 
Army of the Republic," with all its commanderies and com- 
manders, has so far only served to strengthen the Democratic 
vote, by a reaction from the delirium of the war; and the 
Imperialist newspaper expired with the death of General Raw- 
lings, Grant's Secretary of War. (a) This, however, does not 
prove that the monarchical and aristocratic spirit of New Eng- 
land is dead, but only that the time has not yet come. 

But there were in New England then, as now, some 

{a) Of all the converts to the logic of Adams and Guizot, General Rawlings 
was perhaps the most sincere, the purest, the least influenced by selfish considera- 
tions. He had come to believe that Rome was never so well governed or so 
happy as under her kings, and that the good government and happiness of this 
vast country required that it should be centralized into a nation and governed by 
an empeior. There is reason to believe that his death was hastened by chagrin at 
finding out that General Grant, whom he had selected as the instrument for that 
transition, was not the right man. Bribes and armies are potent for the subvei'- 
sion of democratic government and the establishment of empires ; but the former 
must be given, not received, by the aspirant for imperial sway. Plutarch relates 
of Syllathat, while prstor, he happened to be provoked at (Sextus Julius) Csesar, 
and said to him, angrily, " I will use my authority against you." Caesar answered, 
laughing, " You do well to call it yotirs, for you bought it." Whether true or 
false, it soon came to be believed of General Giant that he was more ready to 
sell than to buy his authority. 



XX TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

earnest and able advocates of free government, as, for in- 
stance, Samuel Adams. The sentiment against monarchy- 
was so strong in other portions of the Union, and espe- 
cially in the slaveholding States of the South, that after the 
adoption of the Constitution, the monarchical party deemed 
it prudent to assume the name of Federalists, as being less 
unpopular than one more indicative of their peculiar ideas 
and theories of government. In the Boston Monthly An- 
thology, for March, 1807, the curious reader will find some 
verses (<2:) denunciatory of the Republican party, in which 
this policy of assuming a name for political purposes is thus 
referred to : 

"And if we cannot alter things, 

By G — , we '11 change their names, sir 1 



True, Tom and Joel now no more 

Can overturn a nation : 
And work by butcheiy and blood, 

A great regeneration, — 
Yet, still we can turn inside out 

Old nature's constitution. 
And bring a Babel back of names, — 

Huzza! for Revolution." 



The advocates of the Constitution as adopted were, and 
called themselves. Republicans ; but their opponents in New 
England called them Democrats in derision. In course of 
time they accepted this name, as indicative of their theory 
that legitimate sovereignty resides in the whole body of the 
people, and not in a king and nobility ; and, as soon as they 
dropped the name of Republicans for that of Democrats, their 
opponents, the monarchists, took it up, and assumed it as their 
own party appellation. 

During the session of Congress of 1807-8, Mr. John Q. 

(a) The authorship of these verses was attributed, and no doubt correctly, to 
John Quincy Adams. By Tom and Joel, Tom Paine and Joel Barlow, anti- 
monarchists, were referred to. 



translator's preface. xxi 

Adams surprised his former political opponents as well as 
his own party friends, by what Governor Giles, of Virginia, 
in an address to the public, dated February 28, 1828, calls " a 
complete political somerset from the Federal (or monarchical) 
to the Republican (or democratic) party." In explanation of 
his course, Mr. Adams told Governor Giles and Mr. Jefferson 
that the object of the Federal (or monarchical) party in New 
England " had been for several years the dissolution of the 
Union and the establishment of a separate confederacy ; 
that he knew this from unequivocal evidence, although not 
provable in a court of justice; and that, in case of a civil 
war, the aid of Great Britain to effect that purpose would be 
as surely resorted to as it would be indispensably necessary 
to the design." {a) 

The following is an extract from a letter from Mr. Jefferson 
to Governor Giles, dated Monticello, December 26, 1825 : 

" You ask my opinion of the propriety of giving publicity 
to what is stated in your letter, as having passed between 
John Q. Adams and yourself Of this no one can judge but 
yourself It is one of those questions which belong to the 
forum of feeling. This alone can decide on the degree of 
confidence implied in the disclosure : whether, under no cir- 
cumstances, it was to be communicable to others. It does 
not seem to be of that character, or at all to meet that aspect. 
They are historical facts, which belong to the present as well 
as future time. I doubt whether a single fact, known to the 
world, will carry as clear a conviction to it, of the correctness 
of our knowledge of the treasonable views of the Federal 
party of that day, as that disclosed by this most nefarious 
and daring attempt to dissever the Union, of which the Hart- 
ford Convention was a subsequent chapter; and both of these 
having failed, consolidation becomes the first book of their 
history. But this opens with a vast accession of strength, 

(a) See Mr. Adams's own statement in National Intelligencer, October 21, 
1828. 



XXll TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

from their younger recruits, who, having nothing in them of 
the feelings or principles of '76, now look to a single and 
splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking 
institutions and moneyed incorporations, under the guise and 
cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce, 
and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered plough- 
man and beggared yeomanry. This will be to them a next 
best blessing to the monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps 
the surest stepping-stone to it." 

When it was made known that Mr. John Quincy Adams, 
in explaining to Governor Giles and Mr. Jefferson his reasons 
for joining the Republican or Democratic party, had charged 
these treasonable views upon the Federal party of New Eng- 
land, some of his late political associates, who claimed to be 
patriots, while conscientiously believing the monarchical form 
of government the best, retorted on him, by charging that 
he was still a monarchist at heart, and that his conversion 
to democracy was only pretended. They asserted that " in 
1807, at the table of an illustrious citizen now no more, he 
(Mr. Ada.ms) /amented the fearful progress of the Democratic 
party and of its principles, and declared that 'he had long 
meditated the subject, and had become convinced that the only 
vtethod, by ivhich the Democratic party coidd be destroyed, was 
by joining with it, and urging it on zvith the utmost energy to the 
completion of its viezvs: whereby the residt ivould prove so ridi- 
culous, and so ruinous to the country, that the people would be led 
to despise the principles and to condemn the effects of Democratic 
policy ; and then,' said he, ' we may have a form of govern- 
ment BETTER SUITED TO THE GENIUS AND DISPOSITION OF OUR 
COUNTRY THAN OUR PRESENT CONSTITUTION." («) 

This charge made against Mr. John Quincy Adams by his 

then late associates was denied ; and the attempt was made 

to prove it by the affidavits of Messrs. Townsend and Derby, 

of the monarchical party, both men of high standing in Mas- 

(a) See Boston Statesman, November, 1824. 



translator's preface. xxin 

sachusetts. The case made by these affidavits against Mr. 
Adams was strong, but not conclusive, although they after- 
ward acquired much additional force from Mr. Adams's subse- 
quent reaffiliation with the party whom his father, John Adams, 
in one of his letters to Cunningham, styles the "Absolute Oli- 
garchy',' and by the bitterness of his hatred of Democracy, 
and of its stronghold, the Southern slaveholding States. 

But whether the charge was true or false — whether this 
idea originated with John Quincy Adams, or with the mon- 
archical party, who brought the charge of having originated 
it against him, certain it is that they have since then pushed 
it vigorously and successfully. For what can be more or 
better calculated to " lead the people to despise the principles 
and to condemn the effects of Democratic policy," than to see a 
parcel of ignorant negroes, recently slaves, with no knowledge 
of history or jurisprudence, controlling the destinies of States 
like Virginia and South Carolina, in the place of such men 
as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Madison, Sumter, 
Marion, and Calhoun ? 

New England was not only monarchical. She was also a^ ^ 
negro-slave trader ; and it was not until it was discovered 
that the effect of negro slavery was to strengthen the dem- 
ocratic principle of equality among the whites, that negro 
slavery became odious to New England, In course of time, 
it was seen that the ownership of negro slaves carried with it 
the necessity of making color and good conduct (not wealth 
and poverty) the only basis for distinction. In the presence 
of their black slaves and of the poor white men, whom they 
employed as overseers, and whose authority it was necessary 
to maintain, the slave-owners found themselves compelled to 
treat the poor white man as an equal, because he was white, 
and the negro slave as an inferior, because he was black. In 
no other way could they teach the negroes lessons of obedi- 
ence to their poor white overseers, or keep up the personal 
pride, self-respect, and character of the overseers, which wa^s^ 



XXIV translator's preface. 

indispensable, that they might more easily control the slaves. 
When, at a later period, the Southern slaveholders learned 
that Old England was seeking to abolish slavery in the United 
States, as a means of securing for her own East-India pos- 
sessions a monopoly of the production of cotton and sugar, 
and that the monarchists and aristocrats of New England had 
united with Old England against them, they found it more 
than ever necessary to strengthen themselves by inculcating 
upon their children and neighbors that color and good con- 
duct were the only proper foundation for castes. 
/ It was this necessity of the slave-owners — the necessity of 
/ employing poor white men as overseers, and of treating them 
with respect in the presence of the negro slaves, so as to secure 
respect and obedience to them from the slaves— which, perhaps 
more than all else, led to the marked contrast between the 
social relations and distinctions in the non-slaveholding and 
in the slaveholding States. In the former, if a laboring man 
had occasion to call at the house of a rich man, he was kept 
standing at the front door, or at best in the passage-way, 
until his business was accomplished. In the latter, he was 
invited to be seated in the parlor ; was offered a glass of wine, 
y or whisky and water; was asked to dinner, if that hour was 
^4iigh ; his family and business affairs, the weather, the crops 
and politics were discussed, as between equals and friends. 
M. Guizot, in his History of Civilization, comments on, and 
attaches great importance to, an analogous effect of the Cru- 
sades on the social relations of Europe. He says : 

" During the Crusades, small proprietors found it necessary 
to place themselves in the train of some rich and powerful 
chief, from whom they received assistance and support. They 
lived with him, shared his fortune, and passed through the 
same adventures that he did. When the Crusaders returned 
home, tJiis social spirit^ this habit of living in intercourse with 
superiors, continued to subsist, and had its influence on the 
manners of the age. . . . 



translator's preface. XXV 

"Such, in my opinion, are the real effects of the Crusades: 
on the one hand, the extension of ideas and the emancipation 
of thought; on the other, a general enlargement of the social 
sphere, and an opening of a wider field for every sort of 
activity ; they produced, at the same time, more individual 
freedom and more political unity." 

Such was the effect of negro slavery in the South on the 
social relations of the rich and poor whites, 

I remember, when a boy, hearing the striking contrast 
between the social relations of the rich and poor whites at the 
South and at the North, commented upon by my father. It 
was before the days of railroads, when travelling was by stage 
coach, and before the Abolition agitation had begun to attract 
attention. He had always lived in the South, and was accus- 
tomed to the social equality among the whites there prev\ail- 
ing. In a tour through the Northern States, he rode gener- 
ally with the stage-driver, to see the country. At the first 
meal- stand in Pennsylvania, he was struck with the fact, that 
the white stage-driver was not permitted to take his scat at 
the same table with the passengers ; and, as he progressed 
northward, he found the rule universal that, in the non-slave- 
holding States, the driver was required to eat at a separate 
and inferior table. He was long enough in the Northern and 
Eastern States to become somewhat familiarized with this dis- 
tinction there made between the rich passengers and the poor 
drivers ; and as he passed through Maryland on his return, he 
did not notice whether the driver was permitted to cat at the 
passengers' table or not. From Washington City he started 
on a similar tour through the Southern States. The first day 
out in Virginia, he reached the meal-stand with a traveller's 
appetite, and, seeing dinner ready, he was about to take his 
seat ; but was stopped and told by the waiter that the pas- 
sengers must wait until the driver — a white man — who was 
washing his hands, was ready to take his scat with them. 
This little circumstance caused him to be more observant of 
3 



XXVI TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

the absence of the New-England social distinction between 
the poor and the rich, and of this social equaHty among the 
whites, which he found everywhere a prominent character- 
istic of the slaveholding States. 

From having heard my father speak of this, now nearly 
thirty years ago, and often since, my own attention was called 
to it, and in a very extensive observation in all the slave- 
holding States, I have found it universal, and more strongly 
developed as the Abolition agitation progressed. Shortly 
before the war, I was visiting one of the largest slavehold- 
ers, (a) a truly representative man of his class, who had a poor 
white neighbor employed digging a well. When the first 
bell rang for the ladies to dress for dinner, this well-digger 
came out of his hole in the ground, washed and dressed him- 
self, took his seat at the table with the family and guests, and 
seemed as much at his ease as if he had been governor of the 
State. 

This privilege of color could be forfeited by bad conduct, 
and by bad conduct only ; and when so lost, the negro slaves 
despised the losers, and spoke of them contemptuously as 
" mean white trash ; " sometimes as " poor white trash ; " not 
because they were poor, but because, being white, they had 
forfeited by misconduct the respect due to them by virtue of 
their white skins. 

This tendency of negro slavery, as it existed in the South, 
to break down " the distinctions of rich and poor " whites, 
which the monarchical - aristocratic party of New England 
held to be " as necessaiy in states of considerable extent 
(such as the United States) as labor and good government," 
gave a great impulse to the agitation against negro slavery, 
which had been originally set on foot by paid agents of Old 
England, with a view of securing a monopoly of the pro- 
fa) The planter here alluded to was the late Colonel Andrew P. Calhoun, eldest 
son of John C. Calhoun ; and the well-digger's name was, I think, Boggs, of 
Pickens District, South Carolina. 



translator's preface. xxvii 

duction of cotton and sugar for the British East-India pos- 
sessions. 

But there was another remarkable tendency of negro slave- 
ry, which made it still more odious to those who desired a 
transition to a nearer resemblance of the " British Constitu- 
tion," and therefore " lamented the fearful progress of the 
Democratic party and of its principles." This was its polit- 
ical effect on the character of the poor whites, or " common 
people," of the South. Their social elevation, the more respect- 
ful treatment secured to them by the necessity of the slave- 
owners, as above explained, increased their self-respect, and 
caused them to value more highly their political franchises, 
which, at the same time, made them the superiors of the 
negroes, and the political, as well as social, equals of their 
rich white neighbors. For this reason bribery at elections 
was a thing almost unknown at the South. Even the mos 
abject of those, whom the very negro slaves despised as 
" poor white trash," recoiled from that lower depth of degra- 
dation — selling his vote. This was strikingly illustrated 
by the testimony elicited by the Covode Investigating Com- 
mittee, ist Session, 36th Congress, vol. v., p. 490. It there 
appears that bribery at elections had grown to be a custom- 
ary thing with all parties in the free States. The witness, 
a Northern man, being asked, "Have all your contributions 
been in Northern States ?" replied, " Yes, sir; I do not remem- 
ber spending a dollar politically in Southern States. I have 
tendered contributions there, but they allowed they did not 
use money as we use itin the Northern States." 

In course of time, another remarkable result of negro 
slavery was developed and came to be understood by the 
master minds of W. H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and a few 
others, although the great majority of the free and intelligent 
artificers of the work, which they designed, did not perceive 
or comprehend it, while executing the particular tasks as- 
signed to them, and even now comprehend it very incom- 




XXVlll TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

pletely. Mr. Seward misled the productive classes of the 
free States by the specious dogma of " an irrepressible conflict 
between free labor and slave labor," when in fact there was 
no such conflict; the interests of all labor, whether free or 
slave, being identical, viz., to keep up wages and keep down 
the cost of living. The real conflict was — not between free 
and slave labor — but it was between the capital that hired 
free labor, and the capital that owned slave labor. The 
interests of the former required a system of legislation that 
would put down wages and put up the cost of living. The 
interests of the latter required a diametrically opposite system. 
Wages went into, and the cost of living came out of, the 
pockets of the capital that owned slave labor. Wages came 
out of, and the cost of living went into, the pockets of the 
capital, that hired free labor. Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase 
were not long in discovering that herein consisted the phi- 
losophy of Mr. Jefferson's celebrated aphorism, " The De- 
mocracy of the North are the natural allies of the Repub- 
licans of the South." They were not slow to see that, while 
the interests and inclination of the capital that hired free labor 
called for a system of taxation imposing heavy burdens on 
the laboring classes, the interests and inclination of the 
capital that owned slave labor required a system of light 
taxes, high wages, fair prices for the products of labor, and 
cheap Irving. While many of their less discerning "work- 
men " were surprised to see the Southern slaveholders voting 
and exerting their influence to shape the legislation of the 
country to this end, and were astonished that those whom 
they were taught to consider as the " slave aristocracy," 
should thus act against the interests of those whom they 
were taught to consider the true aristocracy, and /"^r the in- 
terests of the " common people," (the laboring and produc- 
tive classes of the North,) Mr. Seward's astute mind solved 
the mystery. He saw that one peculiar result of negro 
slavery was to identify the interests of the Southern slave- 



translator's preface. xxix 

holders and of the northern working-men ; that it gave to 
Northern labor in its conflict with Northern capital — to the 
" laborers, mechanics, husbandmen, and merchants in gen- 
eral " of the North in their conflict with the aristocracy — a 
potent ally in the slaveholders of the South; that it joined 
them together, as the priest joins man and wife, and that to 
abolish slavery would be to divorce Southern capital from 
Northern labor. 

[Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Attorney-General 
Akerman has been to Washington City, and was initiated 
into the counsels of those, in whose minds the designs of the 
Government machine are centred. Returning to Georgia, 
he made a speech in Representatives' Hall, Atlanta, ist Sep- 
tember, 1870, by which it clearly appears that, among other 
things learned by him in the Cabinet councils, was this fact : 
that one of the main objects and results of the war was to 
divorce Southern capital from Northern labor. His speech, 
whether prepared by him or for him, evinces much adroitness 
in view of the objects to be accomplished by it. They were, 
first, to call the attention of Southern capital to the fact, that 
it is no longer interested in opposing high taxes, low wages 
and prodigal Government expenditures ; that it has no longer 
any interests in common with the laboring classes, the "com- 
mon people," of the North ; secondly, to prepare the way for 
an election bill, by which the ignorant negroes of Georgia, 
voting early and often, on several different days and in several 
different counties, could be used to neutralize the votes of 
intelligent white Democratic workmen in Ohio or Pennsyl- 
vania. He said : 

" My friends, I am touching now a serious topic. ... In the 
United States, looking at the white population alone, the cry 
of a conflict between capital and labor has generally been 
the cry of the demagogue, for the reason that capital has 
seldom been organized against labor, and labor has seldom, 



XXX TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

except in the small way of trades' unions, been organized 
against capital. . . . 

" Hozv is the problem affected by the elevation of colored men 
to freedo7n ? Labor and capital were in the same hands here in 
the South. They have now become divorced by emancipation^^ 

In a speech, at Boston, shortly before the inauguration 
of President Lincoln, Mr. Seward avowed that, in his theo- 
ries of government, he was a disciple pf John Adams. The 
quotations we have given from Mr. Adams's book show 
what those theories were. Mr. Seward, then, believed that 
"a nobility must and will exist;" t!hat "the aristocracy is the 
brightest ornament and glory of the nation ; " that " first- 
magistrates and senators had better be made hereditary at 
once, than that the people should be universally debauched 
and bribed ; " that " the distinctions of poor and rich are as 
necessary in states of considerable extent (such as the United 
States) as labor and good government;" and that these 
States, having become a great nation, should " make transi- 
tions to a nearer resemblance of the British Constitution." {a) 
But a thorough, statesman-like, philosophic investigation of 
the social and political effects of negro slavery in the South 
also disclosed to him the fact, that its tendencies were all 
anti-monarchical and anti-aristocratic ; that the slaveholder 
was surrounded by necessities, which, in his social treatment 
of his poor white neighbor, forced him to become what John 
Adams would call a "vulgar democrat," {b^ and in his political 
action forced him to vote with the "common people," and 
against the monarchical aristocracy of the North, for light 
taxes, high wages, and cheap living ; and, seeing this, he 
declared that "these States must become all free;" that negro 
slavery must be abolished, and capital divorced from labor. 

M. Guizot says : 

" The struggle of classes constitutes the very fact of 

(fl) Query : Russian ? 

(^) See John Adams's Letters to Cunrilingham. 



translator's preface. xxxI 

modern history, of which it is full. Modern Europe, in- 
deed, is born of this struggle between the different classes 
of society." (a) 

The same is true of the United States. We see this strug- 
gle of classes in Mr. Adams's book ; we see it in the dogma 
of the political party that elected Mr. Lincoln and made war 
on the South to abolish slavery, that "free labor might be 
made cheaper than slave labor;" we see it in Chief-Justice 
Chase's son-in-law's declaration at the Memphis Commercial 
Convention that labor must be cheapened ; {^) we see it in 
the substitution of negro for white printers in the Govern- 
ment printing-office at Washington City; we see it in the 
attempt to cheapen the labor of shoemakers in Massachusetts 
and negroes in the South by the substitution and competition 
of the "heathen Chinese;" we see it in the trades' unions 
of the North, and in the National Labor Union of the United 
States. 

It has long been held by a certain class of statesmen that 
the United States could never take that rank among nations, 
to which their vast territory and great resources entitle them, 
without manufactures ; and that they cannot compete with 
Europe in manufactures without reducing the wages of labor 
in the United States to the standard of wages in Europe. 
Among the living advocates of cheap labor, we again find 
Mr. Seward and Chief-Justice Chase the ablest. The only 
difference between them, in this respect, is that Mr.^Seward, 
residing in the East, was a high-tariff man, seeking to cheapen 
labor, by taxing labor for the benefit of the capital that em- 
'ployed labor, as well as by abolishing slavery; while Mr. 
Chase, though born and educated in New England, moved in 
early life to the West, where the protection theories were 

(a) See Guizot's History of Civilization, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 
1837, p. 184. 

(b) See Senator Sprague's speech at tlie Memphis Conrention. 



XXXU TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

unpopular, and therefore relied mainly on abolition to cheapen 
labor. 

In searching for the origin of the dogma that " free labor 
may be made cheaper than slave labor," I find it in M. de 
Cassagnac's book. He proves, demonstratively, that all 
voluntary emancipations on a large scale have been made 
for the benefit of the master, to get rid of the care and ex- 
pense of supporting the slaves ; and that the invariable result 
of all emancipations has been to produce four classes, viz., 
hirelings, beggars, prostitutes, and thieves. The corollary is 
that pauperism increases competition in the struggle for the 
means of existence, and increased competition tends to a 
further reduction of wages, below the cost of feeding and 
clothing a slave, and taking care of him in infancy, sickness, 
and old age. 

About the same time, viz., in 1837, Mr. Calhoun, in his 
speech on the reception of Abolition petitions, threw out, with 
less elaboration, similar ideas : that the tendency of negro 
slavery in the South was to strengthen the principle of re- 
publican equality among the whites, and that no laboring 
class in any part of the world were so well treated and cared 
for, or received so large a share of the products of their labor, 
as the negro slaves of the South. He said: 
^,^ " I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of 

Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, 
I attained a position so civilized and so improved, not only 

physically, but morally and intellectually. It came among 
' us in a low, degraded, and savage condition ; and, in the 

course of a few generations, it has grown up under the fos- 
• tering care of our institutions, as reviled as they have been, 

' to its present comparative civilized condition. This, with the 

rapid increase of numbers, is conclusive proof of the general 
happiness of the race, in spite of all the exaggerated tales to 
the contrary. 

" In the mean time, the white or European race has not 



translator's preface. xxxiii 

degenerated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sec- 
tions of the Union, where slavery does not exist. It is odious 
to make comparisons ; but I appeal to all sides whether the 
South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, courage, 
disinterestedness, and all the high qualities, which adorn our 
nature, I ask whether we have not contributed our full share 
of talents and political wisdom in forming and sustaining this 
political fabric? and ivhctlier xve have not co)ista)itly inclined 
most strongly to the side of liberty, and been tJie first to see, and 
first to resist the encroacJinients of pozver. In one thing only- 
are we inferior — the arts of gain : we acknowledge that we 
are less wealthy than the Northern section of this Union ; but 
I trace this mainly to the fiscal action of this Government, 
which has extracted much from and spent little among us. 
Had it been the reverse — if the exaction had been from the 
other section, and the expenditure with us — this point of 
superiority would not be against us now, as it was not at the 
formation of this Government. 

" But I take higher ground, I hold that, in the present state 
of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distin- 
guished by color and other physical differences, as well as 
intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing 
in the slave-holding States between the two is, instead of an 
evil, a good — a positive good. I feel myself called upon to 
speak freely upon the subject, where the honor and interests 
of those I represent are involved. I hold, then, that there 
never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which 
one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live 
on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this as- 
sertion, it is fully borne out by history. This is not the pro- 
per occasion ; but if it were, it would not be difficult to trace 
the various devices, by which the wealth of all civilized com- 
munities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what 
means so small a share has been allotted to those, by whose 
labor it was produced, and so large a share given to the non- 



XXXIV TRANSLATOR S PREFA.CF 

producing class. The devices are almost innumerable, from 
the brute force and gross superstition of ancient times to the 
subtle and artful fiscal contrivances of modern. I might well 
challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, 
simple, and patriarchal mode, by which the labor of the Afri- 
can race is among us commanded by the European. I may 
say, with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the 
share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where 
there is more kind attention to him in sickness or infirmities 
of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor- 
houses in the most civilized portions of Europe. Look at the 
sick, and the old and infirm slave, on the one hand, in the 
midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintend- 
ing care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the 
forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poor- 
house. But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question. 
I turn to the political ; and here I fearlessly assert, that the 
existing relation between the two races in the South, against 
which those blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most 
solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable 
political institutions. It is useless to disguise the fact. There 
is and always has been, in an advanced stage of wealth and 
civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condi- 
tion of society in the South exempts us from the disorders 
and dangers resulting from this conflict ; and this explains 
why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding 
States has been so much more stable and quiet than the 
North. The advantages of the former in this respect will 
become more and more manifest, if left undisturbed by inter- 
ference from without, as the country advances in wealth and 
numbers. We have, in fact, but just entered that condition of 
society where the strength and durability of our political in- 
stitutions are to be tested ; and I venture nothing in predict- 
ing that the experience of the next generation will fully test 
how vastly more favorable our condition of society is to that 



translator's preface. XXXV 

of other sections for free and stable institutions, provided we 
are not disturbed by the interference of others, or shall have 
sufficient intelligence and spirit to resist promptly and suc- 
cessfully such interferences. It rests with ourselves to meet 
and repel them. 

" Be assured that emancipation itself would not satisfy these 
fanatics ; that gained, the next step would be to raise the 
negroes to a social and political equality with the whites ; 
and that being effected, we would soon find the present con- 
dition of the two races reversed. They and their Northern 
allies would be the masters, and we the slaves; the condition 
of the white race in the British West Indies, as bad as it is, 
would be happiness to ours. There the mother country is 
interested in sustaining the supremacy of the European race. 
It is true that the authority of the former master is destroyed, 
but the African will there be a slave, not to individuals, but 
to the community; forced to labor, not by the authority of 
the overseer, but by the bayonet of the soldiery and the rod 
of the civil magistrate." 

Mr. Calhoun was an ardent, a passionate devotee of the 
Union under the Constitution ; and it is questionable whether 
Governor Joseph E, Brown, of Georgia, could have succeeded 
in hurrying the Southern States into secession in i86i, if 
Mr. Calhoun had then been living. Entering public life in 
l8ii, he was one of the ablest and most zealous supporters 
of the war of 1812 with Great Britain, in defence of the rights 
and interests of the seamen of New England; and his earnest 
nature was soon shocked by discovering that the object of 
the so-called Federal party in New England "had been, for 
several years, the dissolution of the Union and the establish- 
ment of a separate confederacy," by the co-operation of Great 
Britain. (^) The study of his life, therefore, was to find in the 
Constitution some balance-wheel, or regulator, which would 

(a) See statement of John Quincy Adams in the National Intelligencer, October 
tl, 182S. 



XXXVl TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

guard against the danger of secession on the one hand, or 
centralization and despotism on the other. Hence his modi- 
fication of Mr. Jefferson's doctrine of nullification, as an anti- 
dote to the New England doctrine of the right of secession, (^) 

(«) The doctrine of nullification, as laid down in the Virginia and Kentucky 
Resolutions, and as maintained by Jefferson, Madison, and others, made each 
State, T^r itself and separately, the judge of any alleged infraction of the Constitu- 
tion, and of the " mode and measicre of redress.^'' 

Mr. Calhoun's modification of that doctrine proposed to make " all the States 
in convention assembled'''' the judge ; and meanwhile, until such a convention of 
all the States could be called together for the decision of the question, to give to 
each State the right to nullify, or suspend the execution of an obnoxious and 
unconstitutional law temporarily within her borders. By this State right of tem- 
porary suspension, analogous to the Presidential veto, Calhoun sought to protect 
the weaker States from hasty and unjust legislation ; while he relied on the calm 
deliberations of a convention of all the States to effectually suppress the spirit 
of secession. 

Mr. Thomas Ritchie, of the Richmond Enquirer, Mr. Francis P. Blair, of 
the Washington Globe, the National Intelligencer, and others, admitting the 
right of secession, opposed Mr. Calhoun's modification of the doctrine of the 
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, on the ground that its effect would be to 
place a State in the Union and out ^the Union at the same time. See Calhoun's 
address to the people of South Carolina. (Jenkins's Life of Calhoun, pp. 172- 
173.) He said : 

" How the States are to exercise this high power of interposition, which con- 
stitutes so essential a portion of their reserved rights that it cannot be delegated 
without an entire surrender of their sovereignty, and converting our system from a 
federal into a consolidated government, is a question that the States only are 
competent to determine. The arguments, which prove that they possess the 
power, equally prove that they are, in the language of Jefferson, ' the rightful 
judges of the mode and measure of redress.' But the spirit of forbearance, as well 
as the nature of the right itself, forbids a recourse to it, except in cases of dan- 
gerous infractions of the Constitution ; and then only in the last resort, when all 
reasonable hope of relief from the ordinary action of the Government has failed; 
when, if the right to interpose did not exist, the alternative would be submission 
and oppression on one side, or resistance by force on the other. That our system 
should afford, in such extreme cases, an intermediate point between these dire 
alternatives, by which the Government may be brought to a pause, and thereby 
an interval obtained to compromise differences, or, if impracticable, be compelled 
to sul:imit the question to a constitutional adjustment, through an appeal to the 
States themselves, is an evidence of its high wisdom ; an element, not, as is sup- 
posed by some, of weakness, but of strength: not of anarchy or revolution, bat 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XXXvii 

and to the New England spirit of centralization and monarchy. 
His last words in the Senate of the United States, when the 
hand of death was upon him; — when the ambition of this 
world was over; — were a plea for the Union under the Con- 
stitution. His speech of 1837, from which we have just 
"quoted, was an earnest and able appeal to the justice, good 
sense, and self-interests of the laboring and productive classes 
of the North, for the Union under the Constitution, against 
the Abolitionists, then few in number and generally regarded 

of peace and safety. Its general recognition would, in a great measure, if not 
altogether, supersede the necessity of its exercise, by impressing on the movements of 
the Government that moderation and justice so essential to harmony and peace, in 
a country of such vast extent and diversity of interests as ours ; and would, if con- 
troversy should come, turn the resentment of the aggrieved from the system to 
those who had abused its powers, (a point all-important,) and cause them to seek 
redress, not in revolution or overthrow, but in reformation. It is, in fact, properly 
understood, a substitute, where the alternative would be force, tending to prevent, 
and, if that fails, to correct peaceably the aberrations, to which all systems arc lia- 
ble, and ivhich, if permitted to accumulate, 7uithout correction, must finally end in 
a general catastrophe.'''' 

See also Calhoun's letter to Governor Hamilton, of 28th August, 1832, in wliich 
he said : 

" If the views presented be correct, it follows that on the interposition of a 
State in favor of the reserved rights, it would be the duty of the General Govern- 
ment to abandon the contested power, or to apply to the States themselves, the 
source of all political authority, for the power, in one of the two modes prescribed 
by the Constitution. If the case be a simple one, embracing a single power, and 
that in its nature easily adjusted, the more ready and appropriate mode would be' 
an amendment in the ordhiary form, on a proposition of two-thirds of both houses 
of Congress, to be ratified by three-fourths of the States : but, on the contrary, 
should the derangement of the system be great, embracing many points difficult 
to adjust, the States ought to be convened in a general convention, the most 
august of all assemblies, representing the united sovereignty of the confederated 
States, and having power and authority to correct every error, and to repair every 
dilapidation or injury, whether caused by time or accident, or the conflicting 
movements of the bodies, which compose the system. 

"With institutions every way so fortunate, possessed of means so well cilci- 
lated to prevent disorders, and so admirable to correct them, when they cannot 
be prevented, he, who would prescribe for our political disease, disunion on the 
one side, or coercion of a State in the assertion of its rights on the other, rvould 
deserve and will receive the execrations of this and all future generations." 



XXXviii TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

with contempt, as being either pafd agents of Great Britain 
or crazy fanatics. 

But here we have an illustration of the truth of M. 
Guizot's remark that some portions of history are without 
the control of human- judgment and will. Mr. Calhoun 
intended to arrest the Abolition agitation by appealing to the 
justice and reason of that portion, who were actuated by an 
honest zealotry, hoping thereby to withdraw them from the 
support o( the paid emissaries of the British East-India cotton 
and sugar monopoly. His speech, however, had a directly 
contrary effect. By it he drew attention to the republicaniz- 
ing, levelling, democratizing influences of negro slavery, in 
its social and political effects upon the whites. By it he 
called attention to the peculiar influence of negro slav'ery in 
its bearing on the irrepressible conflict between capital and 
labor. By it, and by the cotemporary publication of M. de 
Cassagnac's book, Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase were brought 
to understand w/ij the influence of the South was always 
exerted, in the legislation of the General Government, to 
keep up wages, and keep down the cost of living — in favor of 
light taxes, high wages, cheap living, and an economical 
administration of the Government. From Mr. Calhoun's 
speech and De Cassagnac's book the advocates of low 
wages learned that Abolition would produce pauperism ; that 
pauperism would increase competition in the struggle for 
bread ; that increased competition would reduce wages, with 
cheaper food and coarser clothing and fewer of the neces- 
saries of life to the laborers. The result was, not to detach 
the zealots from the British agents, but to bring the mon- 
archists, the aristocrats, the capitalists, and the advocates of 
low wages into an alliance with the British agents and the 
zealots ; fusing them all, together with some other elements, 
into the great party, that elected Mr. Lincoln, made war upon 
and subjugated the South, and abolished slaveiy, that " free 
labor might be made cheaper than slave labor;" which 



TRANSLATOR S PREFACE, XXXIX 

simply means a reduction* of the wages of free labor below 
the cost of feeding and clothing a negro and taking care of 
him in sickness and the infirmities of age. 

We have referred to other elements in the fusion, that pro- 
duced the party that elected Mr. Lincoln. The two major 
causes that led to that fusion and the consequent war, were 
unquestionably the conflict between despotic and free gov- 
ernment; between the spirit of aristocracy and the spirit of 
democracy : and between capital and labor ; the desire to 
make transitions to a monarchical and aristocratic govern- 
ment, and the desire to reduce wages. But there were other 
mmor causes that deserve a passing notice. 

And, first in importance, should be mentioned foreign 
intrigue to foster division between the North and the South, 
as shown in President Madison's message to Congress, with 
the accompanying correspondence of John Henry, the British 
emissary at Boston, to which the reader is referred. 

In a letter from Boston, 20th March, 1809, to Sir James 
Craig, Governor-General of British America, John Henry said: 

" It should, therefore, be the peculiar care of Great Britain 
to foster division between the North and the South ; and by suc- 
ceeding in this, she may carry into effect her own projects in 
Europe, with a total disregard of the resentments of the 
democrats on this continent." 

Unfortunately too many of the politicians of the United 
States have aided to make this British policy effective, "thus 
advancing (to use Mr. Guizot's language) in the execution 
of a. plan, which they had not conceived, and of which they 
were not even aware." 

One great statesman, unquestionably the ablest of his party 
now living, Mr. Seward, conceived the idea of governing 
this country by sectional animosities, as a permanent system. 
In a speech to the Maryland Legislature at Annapolis, shortly 
after the war, he suggested that, the sectional conflict between 
the North and South having been terminated, the time had 



xl translator's preface. 

arrived for a reorganization of parties, on the basis of a com- 
bination of the Eastern and Southern Atlantic States agai?ist 
the West. 

Another of the minor causes of the war was the personal 
pique of disappointed aspirants for public office or patronage 
Among these the most notable were John Quincy Adams, 
Martin Van Buren, and Francis P. Blair. 

Mr. Adams left the Federal party and joined the Demo- 
cratic party, assigning, as his reason for so doing, that the 
former were traitors and disunionists ; but when the Demo- 
cratic party rejected him as a candidate for the Presidency, 
he renewed his affiliation with his old party, and thereby gave 
color to the charge, made by some of the old Federalists, that 
his conversion to Democracy was pretended. The bitterness 
of his subsequent hostility to the Democracy and to the South, 
their stronghold, leaves no room to doubt that his views were 
colored by the jaundice of disappointed ambition. 

Mr. Van Buren, having been deserted by the Southern 
Democracy in his second race for the Presidency, took his 
revenge by the Free-soil Buffalo platform, and thereby gave 
an impulse to the fusion, which finally resulted in the election 
of Mr. Lincoln and the war. 

Francis P. Blair had grown rich at Washington, as the edi- 
tor of the Democratic newspaper, and by the public printing. 
Mr. Thomas Ritchie had grown old as a Democratic editor at 
Richmond, and was still poor. On the election of Mr. Polk, 
the Virginia delegation in Congress, wishing to provide for 
Mr. Ritchie, urged that Mr. Blair had enjoyed the public 
patronage long enough, and ought to make room for Mr. 
Ritchie. Mr. Polk admitted the force of the demand, and 
required Mr. Blair to sell out the Globe to Mr. Ritchie and 
General Armstrong of Nashville, who changed its name to 
the Union, Mr. Blair yielded to superior force ; but held the 
South responsible for it. He took his revenge by joining in 
the fusion that elected Mr. Lincoln and brought on the war; 



translator's preface. xH 

aided greatly to break down the Democratic party ; and only 
forgave and returned to his first love, when his revenge was 
full by the surrender to superior force at Appomattox Court 
House.(a) 

Another of the minor causes that led to the war was the 
Pacific Railroad. That portion of the Democracy, who sup- 
ported Breckinridge, were opposed to giving to a few indi- 
viduals the enormous grants sought to be obtained from Con- 
gress in aid of that road, and had defeated the bill known as 
the Curtis Bill. Mr. Douglas himself, probably — certainly, 
Governor Herschel V. Johnson — and very many of those, 
who voted for them, were not aware of the plan, the execu- 
tion of which was to be advanced by their nomination ; but 
it was brought about by a rmg of those, who expected to be 
the beneficiaries of some such Pacific Railroad Bill as that of 
Mr. Curtis; — to defeat Breckinridge, who would oppose it, 
and elect either Douglas or Lincoln, both of whom were 
pledged to its support. But, as it is my purpose to give a full 
history of the Pacific Railroad in another publication, I refer 
now to Duff Green's Facts and Suggestions, chap, xxvi., p. 215, 
for further information on this point. 

In this connection, however, there was another remote, but 
very potent, cause of the war, that ought not to be passed 
unmentioned : the cession by the State of Virginia to the 
United States of her great territory northwest of the Ohio 
River. Mr. Calhoun doubtless had it in mind, when claim- 
ing for the South, among the other high qualities that adorn 
our nature, disinterestedness. Mr. Webster, in his speech in 
the Senate, March 7, 1850, said of it : 

" And a most magnificent act it was. I never reflect upon 
it without a disposition to do honor and justice ; — and justice 
would be the highest honor; — to Virginia, for the cession of her 
Northwestern territory. I will say, sir, it is one of her fairest 
claims to the respect and gratitude of the United States, and 

(a) See note (a) to page xlul. 



xHi translator's preface. 

that, perhaps, it is only second to that other claim that 
attaches to her ; that, from her counsels, and from the intel- 
ligence and patriotism of her leading statesmen, proceeded 
the first idea put into practice of the formation of a general 
Constitution for the United States. ... I have said that I honoi 
Virginia for her cession of this territory. There have been 
received into the Treasury of the United States eighty mil- 
lions of dollars, the proceeds of the sales of the public lands 
ceded by her. If the residue should be sold at the same 
rate, the whole aggregate will exceed two hundred millions 
of dollars." 

In the light of more recent events, the historian may lose 
sight of the disinterestedness and magnificence, in the prodi- 
gality, of the gift ; for those, to whom she gave it, turned 
upon and rent her in twain. Nay, more ; while they heaped 
honors on those, whose boast was that they desolated the 
fair fields of Virginia, unti| a crow flying over them had to 
" carry his rations with him," they sought to realize Mr. Cal- 
houn's prophecy by putting the negro slaves, as political mas- 
ters, over the sons of those, whose intelligence and patriotism 
called forth these expressions of respect and gratitude from 
Mr. Webster. 

I remember to have seen, shortly after the war, the idea 
advanced in a New York paper (I think the Journal of Com- 
merce) that the South must thank her own statesmen and 
leaders for her defeat ; because it was wholly due to that sen- 
timent of love for the Union, which Southern statesmen had 
striven so hard to arouse, and which Northern leaders had 
striven with as much earnestness to suppress. 

The proofs of this truth are multitudinous, but space admits 
only the following extracts from the resolutions adopted at a 
convention of the (so-called) Republican party of Massachu- 
setts, at Worcester, not long previous to the war: 

" Resolved, That the necessity for disunion is written in the 
whole existing character and conditions of the two sections 
of the country — in their social organization, education, habits. 



translator's preface. xliii 

and laws — in the dangers of our white citizens in Kansas, 
and of our colored ones in Boston — in the wounds of Charles 
Sumner and the laurels of his assailant — and no Govern- 
ment on earth was ever strong enough to hold together such 
opposing forces. 

" Resolved, That this movement does not seek merely dis- 
union, but the more perfect union of the free States by the ex- 
ptdsion of the slave States from the Confederation, in which 
they have ever been an element of discord, danger, and disfirace. 

" Resolved, That henceforward, instead of regarding it as 
an objection to any system of policy, that it will lead to the 
separation of the States, we will proclaim that to be the 
highest of all recommendations and the grateful proof of 
statesmanship ; and will support, politically or otherwise, such 
men and measures as appear to tend most to this result. 

" Resolved, That the sooner the separation takes place the 
more peaceful it will be ; but that peace or war is a secondary 
consideration in view of our present perils. Slavery must be 
conquered, 'peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must' " {a) 

(a) For twenty years, from the time that Mr. Polk required him to give place to 
Messrs. Ritchie and Armstrong, in 1845, until Columbia was burned and Rich- 
mond evacuated, in 1865, Mr. Francis P. Blair more or less openly co-operated 
politically with the men, who passed these resolutions. In a letter addressed, in 
1855, to Daniel R. Goodloe and Lewis Clephane, Corresponding Committee of 
the Republican Association of Washington City, he assigned the reasons of his 
hostility to the Democratic party and to the .South, as follows : 

"The cause, which your organization is intended to promote, may well draw 
to its support men of all parties. Differences on questions of policy, on constitu- 
tional construction, of modes of administration, may well be merged to unite men, 
who believe that nothing but concert of action on the part of those, who would ar- 
rest the spread of slavery, can resist the power of the combination now embodied 
to make it embrace the continent from ocean to ocean." 

It is impossible for any one, who knows Mr. Blair, to believe that he believed 
what he here assigns as the reason of his combination with the men, who passed 
these resolutions. He was too well informed, knew too much of geography, 
understood too well the climatic influences, which necessarily confined negro 
slavery to the Southern St.ites, where alone it could be made profitable, to l>elieve 
any such thing. But as the close of a lady's letter is said to open the window 
of her heart, so the close of Mr. Blair's letter opens the window of his. He said : 

"Incumbents and expectants of office and dignities claim a sort of patent right 



xliv. translator's preface. 

Here we have disunion avowed in Massachusetts, for the 
purpose of getting rid of the social and political influences 
of negro slavery. I have already shown that its social in- 
fluence was to make the well-behaved poor white man the 
equal of his rich neighbor, and its political influence was ex- 
erted to secure light taxes, fair wages, and cheap living. 
Some of the party, like Mr. Greeley, were willing to "let the 
Union slide," if thereby they could be left free in the North 
and East to enjoy the distinctions between poor and rich, re- 
duce wages, and tax labor and its products for the benefit of 
an aristocracy. But when the Union sentiment, created by 
Southern statesmen, showed itself, then the men, who passed 
these resolutions, were the loudest in crying " rebel," and 
in denouncing those, who took them at their word and pro- 
posed to separate peaceably. Then the monarchists, aristo- 
crats, and advocates of low wages, previously avowed dis- 
unionists, endeavored to make, and did make, the " simple- 
hearted citizens," who loved the Union, believe that the 
South had begun the war. This was not true : for the first act 
of war was the military movement of Captain, now General, 
Robert Anderson, in taking possession of Fort Sumter ; unless, 
perhaps, it would be more correct to say, that the first act of 
war was done by the men, who passed at Worcester the reso- 
lutions above quoted, when they sent John Brown and his band 
to Harper's Ferry, to incite a servile insurrection in Virginia. 

The dominant party of Massachusetts demanded disunion, 
"peacefully if they could, forcibly if they must." The 
South, in answer to this demand, offered to withdraw peace- 

in the machine of Government, to create a Democracy adapted to their purposes. 
Their innovations in the machinery are contrivances to renew their privileges for 
new terms." 

Mr. Blair had long been the incumbent of the very lucrative office of public 
printer, and was forced to give way for Mr. Ritchie and General Armstrong, at 
the instance of the Virgmia delegation. His long "incumbency" made him feel 
that he had " a sort of patent-right " in the profits of that office, and that his re- 
moval was an " innovation " in the machineiy contrived by the Democratic party 
and the South. 



translator's preface. xlv 

fully; tendered the olive-branch; sent commissioners to 
Washington to arrange the terms of peaceful separation. 
Secession was resorted to as a peaceful measure, to satisfy the 
dominant party at the North, who had demanded the " cx- 
pu/sion" of the South from the confederation. Some, as I 
have said, cared only to get rid of negro slavery ; so that the 
North, relieved from its democratic tendencies, might more 
readily make transitions to a monarchical and aristocratic 
form of government, with high taxes, low wages, and large 
Government expenditures. Another class saw, in the larger 
expenditures of a war, the chance of making fortunes by con- 
tracting for army supplies ; and their purpose to provoke a 
war was disclosed by the remark about " blood-letting," made 
by Senator Chandler, whose display of gorgeous liveries and 
other insignia of pretensions to nobility, on his tour through 
Europe since the war, in some measure compensated news- 
paper men for the dearth of excitements when the war was 
over. But there was another class of men at the North, 
those, whom M. Guizot calls the " simple-hearted citizens," 
wdiom Southern statesmen had taught to love the Union, and 
who, full of courage and virtue, though little mindful of po- 
litical affairs till something startling happens to arrest their 
attention, rose up to declare that the Union should be pre- 
served. The South was willing — anxious — to remain in, 
and even after secession to return to, the Union, if permitted 
to do so with their rights inviolate under the Constitution. 
In December, i860. President Buchanan despatched to Mr. 
Lincoln a gentleman, (a) a connection by marriage of the latter, 
to invite him to come to Washington at once; with assurances 
that he would be received as a guest at the White House, 
with all the honors due to him as President elect; and that 

(a) This was my father, General Duff Green. Mr. Buchanan selected him to 1-e 
the bearer of his invitation to Mr. Lincoln, supposing that thron;.;h the marriage 
connection he would have more influence with Mr. Lincoln than almost any 
other messenger, who could have been selected. Ninian Edwards, of Springfield, 
Illinois, was my mother's nephew, and he and Mr. Lincoln had married sistcri. 



xlvi translator's preface. 

by uniting their influence, they could yet satisfy the South 
that they could remain in, or return to the union, with safety 
to their rights, and honor to their character; that thus the 
farther progress of secession could be arrested, and the States, 
that had already acted, be brought back. Mr. Lincoln declined 
to accept Mr. Buchanan's invitation without the approval of Mr. 
Ben Wade, of Ohio, and some others, who would not consent 
to it; and the result was that the blood-letting and contract- 
ing portion of the aristocratic party carried their point, and 
succeeded in provoking the war. 

A great effort was subsequently made to produce the im- 
pression at the North that the war was " the slaveholders' 
rebellion." Nothing could be farther from the truth. The 
slaveholders, with rare exceptions, were averse to war, and 
opposed to secession, lest it might lead to war. Only a few, 
very few, slaveholders, (who were misled into believing the 
Worcester declaration that the sooner the separation took 
place, the more peaceful it would be,) favored the movement. 
Let the candid reader bear in mind that property-holders are- 
proverbially timid and averse to all political movements cal- 
culated to endanger property ; and that the slaveholders had 
multiplied reasons for caution, in the peculiar nature of their 
property, which had legs and a will of its own to take itself 
off. 

It is generally, but erroneously, believed at the North that 
Yancey, Rhett, Toombs, Benjamin, and some others, were the 
chief agents in bringing about secession. Their influence, 
however, was small, compared to that of Governor Joseph E. 
Brown, of Georgia; and for the reason that their arguments; — 
(such, for instance, as the offer to "drink all the blood that 
was spilled," attributed, truly or falsely, to Mr. Toombs ;) — were 
intended to prove that secession would be peaceable, and were 
addressed to the slaveholders, who were in a minority of one 
to fifteen ; while Governor Brown addressed himself to the 
non-slaveholders, who were a vast majority, as the census of 



translator's preface. 



xlvii 



i860 will show, {a) Governor Brown was born in South Car- 
olina, a self-made man, sprung from the non-slaveholding 
class of poor whites ; and his influence with that class, who 
were proud of his talents and success, was not much less in 
South Carolina than in Georgia. 

While Governor of Georgia before the war, he issued sev- 
eral papers addressed to the non-slaveholders, advocating 
secession with great adroitness and ability. His argument 
was in substance as follows : 

That the (so-called) Republican party was coming into 
power, pledged and determined to abolish slavery, and to 
make the negro the equal of the poor white man. 

That, inasmuch as slaves were property, and private pro- 
perty could not be taken without just compensation, the first 
result would be to tax the non-slaveholding mechanics, small 
farmers, croppers, and others of their class, to pay for the 
slaves. 

That another result would be to reduce wages by the com- 
petition of the freed negro, who would make up by petty lar- 
ceny for lower wages; that this would fall upon the laboring 
whites ; because the slave-owners also owned the lands and 
the bank and railroad stocks, and could still provide for their 

(a) The vast preponderance of the non-slaveholders appears by the following 
tabular statement, taken from the census of i860. (See volume of Population, 
pp. 592 and 593, and volume of Agriculture, pp. 223 to 245.) 



Slaveholders. 



White popula- 
tiim. 



Ratio of sla\'«- 

holders to white 

population. 



Alabama 

Arkansas , 

Florida 

Georgia 

Louisiana 

Mississippi 

North Carolina. 
South Carolina. 

Tennessee 

Texas , 

Virginia 



33.730 
11,481 
5.152 
41,084 
22,033 

30.943 
34,65s 
26,701 

36,844 
21,878 
52,128 



526,271 
324,143 
77,747 
591,550 
357,456 
353.S99 
629,942 
291,300 
826,722 
420,891 
1,047,249 



I m 15 
I " 28 
I " 15 
I " 14 
I " 16 
I " II 
I " 18 
I " II 
I " 22 
I " 20 
I " 19 



xlviii translator's preface. 

children without labor ; while the non-slaveholders would be 
further impoverished by taxation to pay for the slaves ; and 
that it would be they — the non-slaveholders and their chil- 
dren — who alone would have to compete with the negroes 
for employment. 

That another result would be to degrade their social posi- 
tion ; because the freed negroes would not attempt to intrude 
into the well-furnished drawing-rooms of their late masters, 
but would force their way to the humble firesides of the poor 
mechanic and laborer, and insult them by dernanding their 
daughters in marriage, {a) 

By such arguments as these Governor Brown " fired the 
hearts" of the vast non-slaveholding majority, and by their 
votes swept the reluctant slaveholders into secession. When 
at a later period it was proposed by General Lee and others 
to put negroes into the army, it was the non-slaveholders, 
who most bitterly opposed it; because they shrank from a 
contact, which they feared would bring them down to a level 
with the negroes. 

The war was not a slaveholders' rebellion. Notwithstand- 
ing the declaration passed by Congress, at the instance of the 
late President Johnson, that the only object of the war was 
to preserve the Union — though very few on either side con- 
ceived, or were even aware of, the plan, the execution of which 
they were advancing — it was fought on the one side — by 
those, who controlled the Government, and in whose minds 
the design of the vast machine was centred, — in the interest 
of monarchism and of the capital, that employs free labor; to 
destroy negro slavery; because its tendencies were anti-mon- 

(a) It is due to Governor Brown to add that, as Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Georgia, since the war, he has sought to shield the poor whites of that 
State from one degradation, by the fear of which he sought to " fire their hearts," 
when advocating secession, by deciding that the intermarriage of whites and ne- 
groes is prohibited. (See his opinion in the case of Charlotte Scott, plaintiff, vs. 
The State of Georgia, which those, who have not access to the Georgia Reports, 
will find in McPherson's Handbook of Politics for 1870, p. 474.) 



translator's preface. xlix 

archical, and its influence exerted in legislation to maintain 
the price of labor and cheapen the cost of living. On the 
other side, it was fought by the Southern non-slaveholders to 
avert pauperization by taxation, reduction of wages, and social 
debasement. 

The great majority of the brave men, who did the hard 
fighting of the war, fought and bled and died, to keep the 
Southern States in the Union ; yet their "judgment and will" 
were subordinated to the control of the men, who, in the 
Worcester resolutions, declared their purpose to be " the ex- 
pulsion of the Southern States from the confederation." 

Many conscientious men thought they were fighting to 
secure justice and liberty for the negroes ; yet their "judg- 
ment and will" were subordinated to the control of men, who 
seized the first moment of power to oppress the negroes, by 
an unjust and unconstitutional tax upon the product of negro 
labor, cotton, while seeking to use the negnjoes as voting- 
machines, to oppress free white labor at the North by similar 
unjust and pauperizing taxation. 

Mr. Attorney- General Akerman, in his speech in Repre- 
sentatives' Hall, Atlanta, Georgia, ist September, 1870, sought 
to impress upon Southern capital the fact, that emancipation 
was a decree of divorce of its interests from those of labor. 

He, or whoever prepared his speech for him, was aware, 
however, that this was a " serious topic." He therefore en- 
deavored in that speech to ride on both sides of the " serious 
topic," by adding that, " looking at the white population alone, 
the cry of a conflict between labor and capital has generally 
been the cry of the demagogue, for the reason that capital 
has seldom been organized against labor; and labor has sel- 
dom, except in the small way of trades' unions, been organ- 
ized against capital." 

But what are the historical facts ? 

The following is an extract from a late report of the Mas- 
sachusetts Bureau ol" Labor Statistics : 



1 TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. 

"boston and the working- women — A PITIABLE PICTURE. 

Extract from the last Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

" In Boston, a large proportion are workers in shops. We 
will take one trade, that of tailoresses and cloakmakers: they 
go to their work at seven, almost always without any warm 
breakfast; they work till ten, and then perhaps have a few 
minutes' rest, when the little teapot is set on the range and a 
lunch of dry food eaten; but in most of the establishments 
the girls do not stop work till twelve, when, in all, they are 
allowed from thirty to sixty minutes for dinner. Work ends 
at five P. M., and many of the girls take work home with 
them, work not ceasing till midnight. Room-rent costs not 
less than two dollars to three dollars each, with often two or 
more double beds in a room. In good shops and with brisk 
work they can earn a dollar a day. Some machine girls re- 
ceive more, bu^the work is very wearing, and induces spinal 
disease. One of our largest as well as kindest custom-work 
merchant tailors testified to a committee of inquiry, that few 
'machine girls' could work over two years before becoming 
so broken down that they were ever after unfit for labor. In 
slopwork shops, girls can seldom earn more than their room- 
rent except by overwork. In slack times their suffering is 
extreme, girls having been known to work weeks with only 
water and bread or crackers for food, and fortunate if able to 
procure an ounce of tea. In dull times many have lived for 
weeks on five cents' worth each of stale bread per week while 
seeking work. The lodging-house keepers charge working- 
women higher rates than men, and many refuse to have them 
in their houses at any price. Hence they are often obliged 
to live and sleep in localities, where they would be ashamed 
to let any one know they ever went. Yet few ever break 
down morally or become untidy in dress. Those women, who 
take work home from the slopshops, provident, aid, and other 
charitable societies, receive as follows : Shirts, 4 cents to 7 



translator's preface. li 

cents; fine-bosomed shirts, lo cents to 25 cents; satin vests, 
20 cents; pants, 15 cents, 20 cents, and 37 cents; coats, 50 
cents ; French calico suits, lined sacks, faced skirt, 20 cents ; 
long white night-dresses, 50 cents. Of the 30,000 women in 
and about Boston, who live by sewing, very few earn over 
;^I2 a week ; the average wages do not exceed $2.75. Many 
poor women take this slop and charity work in quantities, 
and give it to others to do, still further lessening the receipts 
of the actual workers, who are usually women with small 
families dependent upon their labor for support. Paper-box 
makers average about $t, per week. 

" Factory life is much harder on women than it was 
twenty-five years ago. Instead of tending two looms, as 
then, she is required to tend six; while a week's work now 
will not procure as much comfort as when she only tended 
'one loom. Very few working-women of any class ever have 
a good bed, with sufficient bed-covering. Their wages will 
not allow them to purchase warm flannel undergarments or 
serviceable shoes, water-proofs, etc. Few are ever exeni[)t 
from diseases caused by scanty clothing, insufficient and in- 
nutritious food, and long-continued labor in deleterious con- 
ditions. The constant pressure of anxiety breaks down many 
girls physically, and too often morally, before they reach the 
prime of life. All avenues of employment are overcrowded." 

The New York Times, under Mr. Raymond's management, 
was, and still is, one of the ablest exponents of the doctrine 
that "free labor is cheaper than slave labor." On the 14th 
July, 1868, it said editorially: 

"The New Orleans Commercial Bulletin says that the 
Southern planters, 'profiting by free labor, have now discov- 
ered that more money can be made out of a freedman's labor 
than from that of a slave.' We are glad to hear it. In the 
old days of slavery, we always told the Southern people that 
this was the case." 



lii translator's preface. 

On the 2 1st July, 1869, the New York Times spoke edito- 
rially of the great Asiatic slave-trader of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Koopmanschap, as follows 

" It was only a few weeks ago that the name of Koopman- 
schap was unknown to fame. Suddenly it has emerged from 
the obscurity, with which the appellations of ordinary mortals 
are surrounded, and occupies a lofty niche within the nation's 
fame. Everybody is asking 'Who is Koopmanschap?' 
Fortunately he has arrived in the city just in time to answer 
for himself this question, as propounded to him by our re- 
porter yesterday." 

Now why does this advocate of cheap labor and dear living 
give such a lofty niche in the nation's fame to this trader in 
human bones and flesh and muscle? Is there, can there be, 
any other reason than because this new organization of the 
labor system of the United States proposes to furnish capital 
with cheaper labor, giving to capital all the advantages of the 
slave system, and at the same time relieving capital from the 
expense and burden of taking care of labor in sickness and 
the infirmities of age ? Oh, admirable, money-making phil- 
anthropy! 

But let the New York Times speak for itself. It says : 
" It is the importation of these coolies in the past, and the 
proposed transportation immediately of hundreds of thou- 
sands more, to supply the demand for labor everywhere, and 
in every industrial department, and especially to cultivate the 
neglected plantations of the South, that have Diade the name 
of Koopmanschap famous in the land. 

"... The woollen factory of Lazar freres, in San Fran- 
cisco, employs 300 Chinamen, who make splendid hands, al- 
though they were entirely ignorant of the business when first 
employed by that firm. This was two years ago, when the 
Irish hands refused to work more than eight hours a day. 
The firm immediately discharged them, and employed the 
coolies, paying the latter for ten hours' labor a day only $1 



translator's preface, ]iii 

per diem on an average, while to the Irish laborers they had 
paid on an average ^3 per diem, or from iSGo to 3100 per 
month. . . . 

" Mr. Koopmanschap says that he does not bring over 
Chinese women. They are sure to follow wherever the men 
go. The Chinamen will import them for themselves." 

The Cincinnati Commercial is another noted advocate of 
these politico-economical ideas. It also sings pceans to 
Koopmanschap, and revels in the thought of a coming mil- 
lennium of cheap labor. It says: 

" Weavers of cotton and silk can be had in China for two 
or three dollars a month, and skilled artisans receive from 
five to eight dollars for that period of time. . . . 

" Women are found in abundance in China to do the labor 
of households for their mere bread and clothing. Laborers 
can be got in the tea districts of China for six or seven cents 
a day. . . . 

" The American laborer consumes enough meat, tea, and 
coffee, two or three times a day, to keep a Chinaman for a 
week. The price of meat, as is well known, is about four or 
five times that of bread. . . . 

" The subsistence of the great mass of the Chinese is 
extremely simple. The great staple, of which it consist'^, is 
rice, and this, mixed with a little bread, a few vegetable-^-, a 
little fruit, and a little meat, (more frequently fish,) constitutes 
the whole diet of millions. Indeed, the small consumption 
of animal food in China is one of the wonders of the country 
to a stranger. The flesh of beef or mutton is scarcely ever 
tasted except by the rich, and no Chinese ever use cither 
milk, butter, or cheese." 

Such is the Barmecide feast to which the so-called Repub- 
licanism of 1871 invites the laboring and productive classes 
of America. 

On the other hand, the question of cheap labor and cheap 
production, which are the great problems of the age, Ivis 



liv translator's preface. 

been so well treated by Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, in a 
recent address to a mass meeting of working-men in Utica, 
New York, that I here insert it entire. 

SPEECH OF EX-GOVERNOR SEYMOUR. 

At a mass meeting of working-men in Utica, New York, 
Ex-Governor Seymour spoke as follows : 

"At the last six annual elections in this State the Repub- 
lican leaders have asked that they should be kept in power, 
because they claimed they had saved the country, and we are 
left to the conclusion that they saved it for their own special 
benefit. We do not see the grounds for this claim, so far as 
the war is concerned, as we sent our full share of men to the 
field. The city of New York, the stronghold of the De- 
mocracy, did more than its share in filling the ranks of our 
armies. If we look at the action of the party in power, the 
question comes up, what kind of salvati'on have they given 
us ? Our whole people are grievously burdened by taxation. 
Military power still tramples upon the judiciary in many 
parts of the South, and even threatens the sanctity of the 
ballot-box at the North. Great armies are kept up upon the 
pretext that they are needed to save the negroes at the South, 
and to kill the Indians at the West. The country is harassed 
by Indian and African problems. It is now also perplexed 
with the Asiatic question. It comes up like a black cloud 
upon our Western borders, taking unusual forms and propor- 
tions. To all, who have studied it, it causes great anxiety. 
Its shadows fall upon us, and we cannot get rid of its dangers 
by shutting our eyes to its evil forebodings. It enters into 
this election, for we are about to choose our lawmakers, who 
must deal with it. Some months ago I wrote a short letter in 
answer to an invitation from a body of working-men to speak 
to them upon this subject. I took ground not only against 
the way, in which the Chinamen come to our country, but to 



translator's preface. Iv 

their coming here at all. That letter was sharply censured, 
but it was not written without thought or study. As the sub- 
ject is fairly up in this canvass, I will speak of it to-night. 
Heretofore, except at the time when the people of New York 
and New England were bringing negroes from Africa to sell 
•to the people of the South, immigratioa has always brought 
us people kindred to ourselves in manners, customs, and 
religion. Even their languages had much in common. The 
literature of Europe, translated into different tongues, was 
more or less known to them all. They had the same habits 
of thought, and were used to the same form of civilization. 
Their coming gave no shock to our institutions, laws, or 
habits. They rapidly became part of ourselves, and added 
to the general wealth and prosperity. Europe was not so 
overcrowded with people that they were sent to us in great 
numbers, or more rapidly than they could be assimilated. 
We therefore welcomed them to our shores. The Chinese 
immigration is a different thing. It comes from a land 
crowded with people beyond what our civilization could tol- 
erate. They outnumber us ten to one. It brings to us a 
people who are in conflict with all our methods of thought, 
with all our ideas of morals, and with all our conceptions of 
government. While we find much to commend in their 
industry, there is more to condemn in their cunning, their 
cruelty, and in that stolidity of character, which makes them 
unimpressible by any influences we can bring to bear upon 
them. They will always be an undigested, hurtful thing in 
our political system. The idea prevails that they are a docile, 
harmless race ; and so they are while they remain a few indi- 
viduals scattered through the community. 15ut study their 
characters at home, and you will find thieving, corruption, 
and falsehood in the interior of the state, piracy upon its 
coasts, and robbery upon its inland borders. 

" They are hated by all other Asiatics. While some urge that 
we should welcome them here, they arc debating the qucs- 



Ivi translator's preface. 

tion if they shall go on with the massacre of Americans and 
Europeans, which they began with the awful slaughter of the 
men and women, who are engaged among them, as mission- 
aries, in works of charity and religion. Unfortunately for our 
country, our difficulties in dealing with this question are in- 
creased by the late amendments to the National Constitution, 
which have stripped the States of rights needed for their good 
government. Otherwise this question could have been left 
to the Pacific States, who would have dealt with it in the 
light of their own experience. But the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment binds California and Oregon hand and foot, and lays 
them prostrate before the Chinaman, who strides over them, 
and we are forced to confront hin^ here. It is urged by some 
that Chinese immigration will lower the wages of our labor, 
cheapen production, and add to the national wealth. This is 
not true. Cheap labor does not add to a nation's wealth, 
neither does it cheapen production, as I will show. Look 
over the map of the world, and you will find universal pov- 
erty where labor is most poorly paid. In Africa, you can buy 
a man's labor for life for a string of beads, but they are too 
poor to get the string of beads. In Asia, the laborer gets a 
little better pay; but how little is its wealth, and how small is 
its commerce, compared with its countless millions of people! 
Men, who wear scanty cotton clothing, cannot uphold arts or 
industry. They cannot give life and prosperity to the work- 
shop, to the counting-house, or to fleets of vessels upon the 
ocean. If you compare Asia and Africa with Europe, you 
will find that, while the laborers of England, of Germany, of 
France, and other countries are much better paid, the national 
wealth is greater, and that they are sending their products to 
the very regions where the pay of labor is at the lowest ebb. 
The labor of Europe, whose wages are so much higher than 
those of the other continents I have named, can still produce 
all the products of art for a much less price, and can and does 
sell them to those countries, where labor starves for want of 



translator's preface. ivii 

pay. But we must turn to our own country to learn liow true 
it is that labor must be well paid to give wealth and pros- 
perity to a land. If the laborers and mechanics of the United 
States were put upon the same pay given to the Chinamen, 
we should have universal bankruptcy throughout the bounds 
of our country. Three-quarters of the stores of this city 
would be closed. Why is it that a town with 10,000 people 
here does more business than a city of 100,000 in Asia? It 
is due to the fact that our mechanics are able to build houses; 
to furnish them with the comforts of life ; to clothe them- 
selves and their families, not only in a way which protects 
their persons, bvt also gratifies their tastes ; which enables 
them to support the arts and industry in all its forms. Why 
are the people of these United States able to pay a percent- 
age of taxation, which would crush any other nation ? It is 
simply because the wages of labor here enable men to con- 
sume all those varied articles, which pay a duty to Govern- 
ment. Go where you will, the world over, and you will find 
the greatest general wealth, the greatest prosperity, and the 
greatest happiness, where you find the greatest wages for 
labor. Men confound cheap labor with cheap production. 
These are not only different, but at times they are opposite 
things. Sometimes cheap labor is an element in cheap pro- 
duction, but that is not the rule. We see the fact to be that, 
where labor is the highest, production is the cheapest, and 
sends its works of art and of skill all over the world. The 
reason of this is, cheap production is the result of intellect as 
well as labor; of mind as well as of toil. It is wrought out 
by those, who are in that condition of comfort and respect- 
ability, that their minds are educated and alert. Starving 
labor never yet invented machinery to till the ground and 
gather in its crops ; it never yet worked out those wonders in 
mechanics, which have borne our country on to its greatness. 
Men can cheapen their productions and add to their earnings 
when they can call to their aid science and learning, but 
5 



Iviii translator's preface. 

these two cannot live where labor is pinched down to the 
point of starvation. If man invents a machine, which enables 
him to make more, he can yet sell for less and grow rich. 
But force him to sell for less by the competition of the China- 
man, which does not increase his power of production, and 
he starves. And when the laborer sinks, the whole structure 
of society, of which he is the basis, sinks with him. This 
may be laid down as a law — that cheap production and gen- 
eral prosperity are the results of high civilization and general 
intelligence ; that these can only exist among a people, where 
the great mass of the working men are well paid and placed 
in the condition of respectability, where their minds are fed as 
well as their bodies. But it is said there is no danger that 
the Chinamen will come to this country in such numbers as 
will harm our working-men. Is this true ? We find that the 
character and condition of the Chinese is such that they can 
be sent for as readily as so many boxes of tea. We learn 
every day of orders that are sent out for thousands of them 
for special purposes. Orders are now under way for bands 
of them to make boots and shoes. It does not take a large 
number, thrown into this branch of business, to overstock the 
demand for this labor, and to unsettle the wages of those, who 
are skilled in this business. Already the artisans engaged in 
this trade are uneasy. They do not know how soon that skill, 
which they have gained in it, may be made valueless to sup- 
port their families in the condition they have heretofore lived. 
The men who make clothes or hats, or other classes of our 
mechanics, may be treated in the same way. Those, who 
work in our factories, are liable to be driven out by orders, 
which are even now on their way to Asia. Navigation on 
the Pacific, as its name implies, has always been less costly 
and dangerous than that of the stormy Atlantic. There are 
now about one hundred and fifty thousand Chinamen in our 
countr}^ An equal number, brought here by selfish and de- 
signing men, may be so placed as to force down the wages of 



translator's preface. lix 

working-men. The mere fact, that this can be done, destroys 
the independence and clouds the hopes of the body of our 
mechanics. There is a growing belief in men's minds that 
the mission of Mr. Burlingame was contrived by a class of 
manufacturers to effect this very object, at the moment they 
were appealing to Congress for special legislation in their 
own behalf Short-sightedness is always incident to selfish- 
ness and greed. Let these men bear in mind that, when they 
have broken down the body of the laborers of this country, 
they will have destroyed their ability to be the consumers of 
manufactured products. The evils of underpaid labor will 
not fall upon the working-men alone. All classes must suffer 
when they are made poor. The 'owners of real estate, the 
merchant, the manufacturer, will find that the laws of trade 
and the rules of value are universal and unvarying. They 
will operate in Europe or America, as they do in Asia or 
Africa. True statesmanship and generous wisdom ever look 
to building up the interests of labor. Where the homes of 
toil are happy, and where prosperity waits upon the hand of 
industry, there is national greatness, wealth, and glory. But 
we are asked. What can we do to avert these evils? How 
can we hinder the landing upon our shores of swarms of 
Asiatics, without overturning the established maxim as to im- 
migration ? We need no change of our policy in this respect. 
We put the Asiatic and the European upon the same footing. 
Our laws have never allowed any nation to send here a hurt- 
ful or a dangerous class of men. When in some instances 
they have shipped paupers to our shores, we have sent them 
back. We forbid the violators of laws, men who endanger 
the public health or order, to land here. The statutes of the 
different States and of the nation are full of such regulations. 
We welcome the great body of European immigrants, because 
it is for our advantage to have them here. The Chinaman 
has no better rights than the German, the Irishman, the Eng- 
lishman, or the Frenchman. If his coming here is hurtful to 



Ix translator's preface. 

the good order of society, to the great interests of industry, 
we have a right to keep him away. If there is danger that 
they will pour into the Pacific States in such numbers as to 
shape their customs and habits by Asiatic rules, then they 
endanger our Union, for the end of this must be their utter 
severance from the rest of our country. The Mormons 
are not so much in conflict with our ideas of morals and 
civilization as are the Chinese. Yet no one would tolerate 
the idea that the Mormons should gain control of the Pacific 
coast. This Government is even now adopting sharp meas- 
ures to hold them in check, at their colony in the midst of 
the great deserts of the West. A simple law, such as has 
been adopted with regard "to foreign immigration, will settle 
this whole question. Let Congress declare that no more 
than ten Chinamen shall be landed from one vessel, and they 
will close to a safe degree those floodgates, which are now 
wide open, and through which we are threatened with an in- 
vasion from Asia as hurtful as that, which once desolated 
Europe under Genghis Khan, I have spoken thus plainly 
upon this subject, because I believe it more deeply concerns 
the welfare of the American people than any topic involved 
in this election. I have no censures for those who may differ 
from the views I hold. I have no prejudices, which will hin- 
der me from changing those views, if I find that I am wrong. 
What I have said is the result of much thought and careful 
study. I wish that those, who are charged with the conduct 
of national affairs, or that their supporters, who are active in 
this canvass, had in a plain and open way stated their views 
with regard to this great Asiatic problem. I think that, by 
so doing, they would stand in a better light before the country 
and the world, than by efforts to keep alive sectional hate 
and partisan malice," 

To the editorial comments of the New York Times on the 
fact noticed by the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, it i>s 



translator's preface. Ixi 

only necessary to add one single example, out of millions, to 
illustrate that the effect of emancipation has already been to 
reduce wages, and to diminish the share of the products 
of labor, allotted to those, by whose labor they were pro- 
duced. A negro woman, who was an excellent cook, was, by 
the casualties of the war, separated from her owners in 1864. 
In January, 1870, she was most happy to get back to them. 
She told them she had been doing her best to support herself, 
but had not been able to get more than her food and forty 
dollars a year, out of which she had to clothe herself, and 
pay for medicine and medical attendance. Before the war 
she could be hired readily for 5125 to $150 per annum, with 
food, clothing, medicines, and medical attendance in addition. 

Yet the Republican cry is still for cheaper labor ! and 
Senator Sprague attended the Memphis Commercial Con- 
vention for the sole purpose of impressing on the mind of 
Southern capital that, having been divorced by emanci]xition 
from labor, it should now unite with Northern capital in 
measures to cheapen labor, {a) 

In this divorce case, labor is the feebler party; — the poor 
deserted wife, left without alimony, and with a brood of 
hungry children crying for bread, and dependent on her for 
support ! 

Emancipation has taken from her that "natural ally." which 
a community of interests secured to her in the old days of 
negro slavery, as expressed in Mr. Jefferson's a[)horism, 
above quoted. Wages no longer, at the South, go into, but 
they come out of, the pockets of capital. The cost of living, 
at the South, no longer comes out of, but goes into, the 
pockets of capital. 

And now we have the authoritative declaration of the 
Attorney-General, the first law-officer of the Government, that 
Mrs. White Labor and Mrs. Black Labor are two lonely 
grass widows. 

(tf) See Senator Sprague's speech at tlie Memphis Commercial Convention. 



Ixii translator's preface. 

The question arises, Where can they, in their. lonesome 
grass - widowhood, turn for aid and comfort, food, and 
shelter ? 

Shall they "go to Chicago"? Alas, they are already 
divorced by emancipation ! They would be glad to make an 
honest living, as hirelings, if they could get wages to keep 
soul and body together. But they shrink from living by 
beggary, prostitution, or theft. Then there is no use in their 
''going to C J lie ago!' 

Shall they appeal to what is called RepJiblicanisjn in 1871 ? 
Alas ! with the old rakes of that set, who misled, deceived, and 
betrayed them, the heyday of the blood is over ; their hearts 
are withered and callous ! Besides, they brought about the 
divorce, of malice prepense, with set purpose to ruin these two 
poor women; that they might thereby be forced into one of 
De Cassagnac's four classes of the proletariat, viz., hirelings 
at cheap wages, or else beggars, prostitutes, or thieves ! 

Shall they appeal to the younger bloods of the set — any 
of the "smaller fry," who call themselves Republicans? 
Alas ! they never had either hearts or brains ; or, if they 
had, there was not phosphorus enough in their composition 
to light up the one, or warm the other ! Besides, they be- 
long, body and soul, to capital, and believe that, in the pro- 
gress of civilization, the great need of the hour \s cheap labor / 

Can they find relief in what the Attorney-General calls 
"the small way of trades' unions"? Alas, alas, alas! our 
author shows that all history proves that to be a poor and 
vain reliance ! Egotism, selfishness, appear there, as else- 
where. I attended the National Labor Convention in Balti- 
more in 1866, as a spectator, from curiosity, to see what it 
was composed of, and what were its objects. I was at the 
National Labor Convention in Chicago in 1867, as a delegate 
from the Pattern-makers' Union of Baltimore. I had not much 
to say at either Convention, but was a close observer at both. 
Of all the men, whom I saw at Baltimore or Chicago, only 



translator's preface. Ixiii 

two impressed on me the idea that their purpose was to 
relieve the distress of the two poor divorced widows, Mrs. 
White Labor and Mrs. Black Labor. All the rest impressed 
me with the idea that their "judgment and will " were under 
the control of the few, in whose minds the designs of the ma- 
chine were centred; or that egotism, selfishness, was their 
only motive ; that their purpose was " to grind their own 
axes," and to get some control over the two poor lonesome 
grass widows, on which they could trade, for their own profit, 
with the advocates of cheap labor. 

Can wan, pallid Mrs. White Labor find an asylum in the 
cabin of her dusky rival, Mrs. Black Labor, now the favored 
mistress of that wild enfant perdn, Imperialism, who is trav- 
elling, mcog., through the United States, under the assumed 
name of Republicanism ? 

Pshaw ! Let Pharisees, who trade upon, and grow rich by, 
negrophilism, falsely prate about the equalit)^ or superiority 
of the negro over the white race, in all intellectual, moral, 
physical, social, and political aptitudes. Let charlatans in 
statesmanship vainly delude themselves with the belief, 
that, by such legislation as the Akerman Election Bill of 
Georgia, they can vote negroes, without challenge, as often 
as their party necessities require. Let would-be emperors 
fondly imagine that, because the ''colored troops fought 7iol)l)>" 
the colored vote can be used to make them small Neros or 
Caligulas. All this is vanity and vexation of spirit. It is 
historically certain — at least I firmly believe — that thirty 
millions of the Caucasian race will not long consent to leave 
their destinies under the control of four millions of ignorant 
negroes, misled by bad white men, of very little more intel- 
lect than the negro, and with hearts blacker than the negro's 
skin. 

Oh, that these poor divorced women could turn to some 
one of the noble and gallant men, whom they called "rebels." 
when in fact they were risking life and fortune, and lost cvcr>'- 



Ixiv translator's preface. 

thing but honor, for their sakes and in their cause ! I could 
speak to them of men, whose names are synonyms for all that 
is great in intellect, noble in conduct, pure in morals, knightly 
in courtesy. I could point to one in Georgia, a native Geor- 
gian ; brave as Marshal Ney, eagle-eyed and skilful as the 
first Napoleon, devout and sincere as Havelock or Robert E, 
Lee, the great Christian soldier, Major-General John B. Gor- 
don, who was on the battle-field and in the Episcopal Church, 
what Stonewall Jackson was on the battle-field and in the 
Presbyterian Church. Near to him, in South Carolina, I 
could point to General William S. Walker, a Pennsylvanian 
by birth, but, like Gordon, " sans peur et sans reproche ; " 
one who never deceived man or misled woman. I might 
name others. But, alas ! all these men were Southern rebels. 
They fought bravely and conscientiously in a cause they 
believed to be right ; yet, they were conquered — subjugated. 
Now they are prostrate. The dusky mistress of Imperialism 
has her pearl-embroidered slipper {a) on their necks. 

Is there, then, no hope for the widows — is there no help 
for the widows' sons and daughters ? 

Yes. In the Democracy of the Great West, there yet 
remain traces of the pure republicanism of Jefferson and 
Madison, of Calhoun and Webster. There labor can find 
statesmen, who have never bowed the knee to Baal or to 
Mammon, nor accepted the idea that, in the progress of civil- 
ization, the great objects of social and political science are to 
cheapen labor, and to regulate the diet of American working 
men and women by the smallest quantities of rice and fish, 
on which an Asiatic can exist. 

The first great need of labor is an honest and economical 
administration of Government. Prodigal expenditures require 
oppressive taxation, which, however disguised by the subtle 
and artful contrivances of modern legislation, labor and the 
products of labor in the end have to pay. (^) 

(a) See chap. xvii. 

[i>) See chap, xiv., on the Fall of the Ancient Trades' Unions. 



translator's preface. Ixv 

But what, more than all else, oppresses labor, and all, who 
employ labor in the pursuits of productive industry, is the 
subtle and artful fiscal contrivance, by which the control of 
the money of the country is centred in a few hands, enabling 
them by combination and concert of action to raise or lower 
the prices of the products of labor at pleasure, by making 
money scarce when they wish to buy, and abundant when 
they wish to sell. " Never," said Mr. Calhoun in the Senate, 
October 3, 1837 — "Never was an engine invented better 
calculated to place the destiny of the many in the hands of 
the few, or less favorable to that equality and independence, 
which lie at the bottom of our free institutions." 

I wish here to repeat, what I have said in my dedication, 
that under the designation of " The Laboring and Burgher 
Classes of America," I include all of the learned professions 
— all, who labor with the brain or with the hand — all, who 
wish to Hve and grow rich by the fruits of their own honest 
industry — all, who do not seek to live by plundering the 
Federal or State treasuries, nor by Congressional or State 
class legislation. 

What they all require is an abundant and cheap measure 
of prices, of uniform and stable value. 

But a further discussion of this subject would make this 
preface too long, and I propose to treat of it in another book. 
If I have succeeded in dispelling some few of the many 
errors, under which the Northern and Western mind have 
been befogged, in reference to the causes and results of the 
late Civil War in America, my present purpose will have 

been accomplished. 

BEN. E. GREEN. 

Hopewell, near Dalton, 
Whitfield County, Georgia, 
February, 187 1. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



WE have already alluded briefly (see p. xlviii.) to the repng- 
. nance of the non-slaveholding whites of the South to the 
proposition for negro enlistments in the Confederate armies ; a 
repugnance which even the great name and magic influence of 
Robert E. Lee could not overcome. This proposition was advo- 
cated by General Lee at a late period of the civil war — perhaps too 
late to have changed the results. Reluctant as we are to detain our 
readers, we would feel that our part of this work was incomplete if 
we failed to notice the fact, that long before General Lee came to 
that conclusion, there was one man whose forecast anticipated that 
some such measure would be indispensable to the success of the 
Confederate cause. That man was Colonel John T. Pickett, who 
was selected, on account of his previous Mexican experience, as 
the first diplomatic agent of the Confederate States in Mexico. 
Early in the war — under date of Vera Cruz, February 22, 1862 — 
he submitted, for the consideration of the Confederate Government, 
the following 

"MEMORANDUM. 

"Is there no mode by which we may be able to neutralize the 
hostility existing throughout the world against our institution of <iJo- 
mestic servitude ? It is in vain to attempt to correct the gross mis- 
apprehensions prevailing with regard to it. The word ' slavery ' is 
sufficient to condemn it among the peoples. Can we not invent a 
better and more appropriate name for it ? It is not ' slavery ' as 
understood among men ; but we bear the odium as though it were. 
The enactment of laws which would prohibit the separation of 
mothers and children, (though what white family is not so sepa- 
rated ?j the granting to the negroes certain civil rights, (so to speak,) 
22 329 



330 POSTSCRIPT. 

— such as protection from cruel and arbitrary punishment, right to 
change their masters if maltreated, privilege to purchase their free- 
dom, etc., etc., — might go far toward the end so much to be de- 
sired. Practically, these things do exist to a certain extent. The 
force of public opinion is protection to the negro, not to speak of 
the interest and even affection of the master. But the world at large 
knows not these things, and cannot or will not be convinced ; 
whereas, an expression of the supreme legislative will would appeal 
to the governments and to the enlightenment of the age. I resided 
for years in the British West Indies, made many visits to Hayti and 
to the Dominican Republic, have seen only too much of the fruits 
of indiscriminate equalit)'^ among the mongrels and hybrids of Span- 
ish America, and therefore no one can entertain sounder views on 
the great domestic question than I do. In short, emancipation toith- 
<?2// deportation would be national suicide; ivlth it, a chimera." 

These suggestions were not acted on for two reasons : first, be- 
cause the question was a local one, belonging exclusively to the 
States, and the Confederate authorities had no constitutional power 
to touch it in any way ; secondly, because their whole time, atten- 
tion, thoughts, and energies were absorbed in the question of de- 
fence — of repelling the armed invasion of their territory. 

Colonel Pickett's idea was, that the inauguration of a scheme of 
gradual emancipation would emasculate the Abolition party of the 
North, satisfy Europe, and secure intervention, peace, and inde- 
pendence ; and that although the Constitution of the Confederate 
States gave to the Confederate Government no right to interfere with 
the local institutions of the States, yet the Confederate Congress 
might, by joint resolution, recommend some such action to the State 
Legislatures, and justify their recommendation by the plea of " mili- 
tary necessity,^* which in time of war covers, like charity at all 
times, a multitude of sins. 

Colonel Pickett soon found that he could accomplish nothing by 
remaining in Mexico, and, without waiting for instructions from his 
Government, returned to take part in the active service of the field, 
as chief of staff to General Breckinridge. As Mr. Colwell, under 
the excitements of the war, came to the conclusion that negro 
slavery should be sacrificed to save the Union, so Colonel Pickett, 



POSTSCRIPT. 



331 



from his standpoint, under the influence of his associations with the 
diplomatic representatives of the monarchies and eni)jires of Karoj.e, 
came to the conclusion that the instiiuiion should be sacrificed to 
secure European intervention, peace, and independence. 

Subsequently, he ran as a candidate for the Confederate Congress, 
against General Humphrey Marshall, that he might officially and 
more effectually ventilate his views in favor of negro enlistments 
and gradual emancipation. He was defeated, not, as he supposes, 
by any intrigues of General Marshall, but because it got bruited 
about among the non-slaveholding whites that he was in favor of 
negro enlistments and gradual emancipation. 

Still later, he learned that the Confederate Government contem- 
plated sending another minister to Mexico, and, for the benefit of 
his successor in that mission, submitted the suggestions of his expe- 
rience, as follows : 

" The cause of Mexican hate toward us, as individuals and as 
a nation, is patent. ... It may be said to arise, firstly, from the 
great aversion of the Mexicans to negro slavery; and, secondly, 
from jealousy of race, the natural dread a weaker people have for 
a stronger neighbor, and from the artfully contrived teachings of 
the United States Government as to past and future aggressions upon 
Mexican territory. 

"As to the first proposition. It is impossible to unteach the Mexi- 
can mind on the subject of slavery. We daily feel what an aboli- 
tion propaganda has done among a more enlightened people. But 
it ought to be in our power to persuade Mexican statesmen (for it 
will be with Mexicans that our diplomatist will have to deal, even 
under the government of Maximilian) that, although slavery has both 
its moral and political blessings, and as practised in the Confederate 
States, it is but a mode of hiring servants for life, while in other coun- 
tries they are employed by the day, month, or year, yet we have never 
designed to force the institution upon our neighbor. It can be shown, 
too, that free colored people are regarded with more consideration 
and entitled to more substantial privileges among us, though not 
admitted to social and political equality, than in the United States. 
Our history will furnish instances. General Jackson treated the free 



332 POSTSCRIPT, 

colored inhabitants of New Orleans as 'citizens,' in a certain sense. 
We know that a large class in Mobile, of the present day, termed 
'Creoles,' are colored people, (whence the popular error as to the 
true signification of that word,) of French and Spanish admixture. 
It is also a fact that many adopted citizens of Texas have African 
blood in their veins. Neither did our Southerners in California ob- 
ject to the eminent Don Pio Pico because of his negro blood. But 
California, an Abolition State, refuses citizenship to the Chinese, (to 
which refusal the writer does not object, individually,) while, to my 
knowledge, some of the best families in Mexico have Chinese blood 
in their veins — the natural consequence of the annual galleon be- 
tween Acapulco and Manilla. I was on very friendly terms with 
the head of one of these families, Don Luis Jauregui. But the most 
striking contrast of this whole picture would be the treatment which 
the negroes received from a New York mob not many months ago. 

" It would be an ungracious office, but we might remind the Mex- 
icans that they enslave their own race. Indeed, white peons are 
very numerous, and peonage is the most atrocious system ever con- 
ceived of. It is slavery for debt, without provision for infancy, sick- 
ness, or old age. It is transmitted from father to son, while with us 
the child takes the coftdition of the mother only. But hear Com- 
modore Perry on the subject of Mexican peonage. ' God pity these 
poor creatures ! ' says the commodore in his journal, in reference to 
the laboring classes of the Lew Chew Islands. ' I have seen much 
of the world, have observed savage life in many of its conditions, 
.but never, unless I may except the miserable /<v//jr of Mexico, have 
I looked upon such an amount of apparent wretchedness as these 
squalid slaves would seem to suffer. ' 

" It is a system which would have disgraced the laws of Draco, 
which are said to have been written in blood. If we were as' hypo- 
critical and meddlesome as our Northern brethren, and were in a 
condition to do so, we might cajole the world by a crusade against 
this enslavement of white men. We might create a great sensation, 
too, by broaching a scheme for the amalgamation of the white and 
red races of the continent. Why should it not be as great an honor 
to claim the blood of Montezuma as that of Powhatan ? At least, let 
us impress Mexicans with the fact that we have no prejudice against 
their native race — that Indians are citizens with us, and sit in our 



POSTSCRIPT. 333 

national legislature. It would be well, also, to explain to them that 
it is in the abolition programme to colonize Mexico with North 
American negroes of the Protestant (i. e. ' heretic ') faith, and speak- 
ing the English language. 

" As a proof that Mexico is thoroughly abolitionized, I will men- 
tion that, during my long residence as United States Consul at Vera 
Cruz, I never succeeded in reclaiming, by intervention of local 
authority, a single negro deserter from the vessels of my nation ; 
while, on the other hand, I scarcely ever failed to have the white 
sailors returned promptly. I think the accomplished gentleman * 
mentioned in connection with the secretaryship of the new mission 
has some official knowledge of this fact. I will dismiss this part of 
my theme by suggesting that the envoy procure some of our stand- 
ard Southern works on the slavery question. They may be useful 
to him, and cannot, probably, be procured in Mexico.* He can 
easily obtain the published Northern view of the .subject in that 
capital, and should do so. Fas est ab hosie doceri." 

Colonel Pickett is an accomplished scholar, a sound thinker, a 
quick and acute observer. Yet the standpoint from which his ob- 
servations were taken did not command a view of the whole field. 
He looked at the subject only as a diplomatist, intent on one object, 
viz. peace and independence through the instrumentality of an 
European intervention. Consequently, like M. Guizot, (see anh-, 
p. 134,) with many clear and correct views, he stopped halfway on 
his road to a great discovery. He saw that the world is governed 
by sensations; but he did not prosecute his inquiries far enough to 
discover who created these sensations, and for what purposes. If he 
had done so, he would have seen that self-interest was at the bot- 
tom; that "man advances in the execution of a plan which he has 
not conceived, of which he is not even aware, and which he compre- 
hends very imperfectly," while " its designs are centred in a single 
or in few minds." 

He saw that the diplomatic representatives of European despot' 
isms were bitterly and unchangeably opposed to iht peculiar inslitu 
tion of negro slavery in the Southern States, while they had no word 

* Walker Fearn, Esq., Secretary of Legation to Mexico with the Hon. Joha 
Forsyth, Minister Plenipotentiary. 



334 



POSTSCRIPT. 



of sympathy for the far more wretched condition of the peons of 
Mexico, nor for the slaves of the Lew Chew Islands and of the 
British East Indies. 

He did not stop, or rather he did not go on, to inquire why this 
was so. If he had, he would have discovered that negro servitude, 
as it existed in the Southern States, being a. peculiar institution, pro- 
duced peculiar political and politico-economical results. 

ist. Its tendency was to strengthen the democratic principle of 
political and social equality among the rich and poor whites. 

2d. It elevated the whites, however poor they might be, above 
the degradation of selling their votes. 

3d. It mar7-ied capital to labor, by making it the interest of cap- 
ital to keep up wages, which went into its pocket, and to keep down 
the cost of living, which came out of its pocket. 

4th. Tl,:e result of these peculiar influences was to give stability to 
free institutions, causing the Southern States to be " constantly in- 
clined most strongly to the side of liberty : the first to see and the first 
to resist the encroachments of po7ver ; and, by the marriage of capital 
to labor, it enlisted capital on the side of labor against that legisla- 
tive policy which seeks to cheapen labor, to increase taxes, and to 
squander the taxes paid by labor for the profit of capital." (See Cal- 
houn's speech, ante, p. xxxii.) 

If Colonel Pickett had pushed his observations beyond the diplo- 
matic into the politico-economical field of inquiry, he would have 
discovered that, on the part of the advocates of centralism and of 
capital, emancipation was the chief object of the war ; because, 
ist. Emancipation would divorce Southern capital from labor ; 
2d. It would destroy the chief support of the democratic princi- 
ple of equality among the whites, and place the Government on the 
inclined plane to monarchy ; 

3d. It would substitute for the incorruptible votes of the poor 
whites of the South the cheaply purchasable votes of negro freedmen, 
to neutralize the votes of the Avorking and burgher classes of the 
North and West. 

When Colonel Pickett said that "emancipation without deporta- 
tion would be national suicide; with it, a chimera," he spoke oi im- 
mediate emancipation in mass. His observations and experience in 
Mexico and the West Indies doubtless satisfied, him, as ours did us, 



POSTSCRIPT. 335 

that deportation was surrounded with practical difficulties which made 
the scheme chimerical. Those difficulties were, first, the enormo-js 
expense of moving 4,000,000 of people, and of taking care of them 
in transitu, and until located in new homes ; second, their inability 
to take care of themselves after they were located, :ls shown by the 
fate of the American negro colony on the island of Santo Domingo; 
third, the inhumanity of the "frightful misery" which must inev- 
itably result from turning them off to take care of themselves ; and. 
finally, because their labor was indispensable where they were, and 
could not be supplied except by a slow and gradual system, nmning 
through a long course of years. 

This idea of gradual emancipation with deportation originated 
with Mr. Jefferson, fifty years ago — long before the very peculiar 
politico-economical results of \ht peculiar institution were analyzed 
by the master mind of Calhoun. Up to the close of the war, de- 
portation of the negroes was a favorite idea with most of the prom- 
inent leaders of the monarchical cheap-labor party. 

On the 8th of December, 1859, Senator Trumbull said : 

" When we say that all men are created equal, we do not mean 
,that every man in organized society has the same rights. We do 
not tolerate that in Illinois. I know that there is a distinction be- 
tween these two races, because the Almighty himself has marked it 
upon their very faces; and, in my judgment, man cannot,- by legis- 
lation or othenvise, produce a perfect equality between these races, 
so that they will live happily together. ... I trust that an idea 
foreshadowed by Mr. Jefferson will hereafter become, although it Ls 
not now, part of the creed of the Republican party. I mean the 
idea of the deportation of the free negro population from this country. 
... It seems impracticable to transport this great population to 
Africa. Let us obtain a country nearer home ; and I know I mar 
say for the people whom I represent, we will contribute liberally of 
our means to relieve the country of the free negro population. I 
hope it may become the policy of the Republican party ... to 
deliver the country from the only element which ever seriously 
threatened its peace, and furnish the means of relieving it from the 
evils of a large free negro population. By such a course we may 
lay the foundation for continued and permanent prospcnty." 



33^ POSTSCRIPT. 

On the 13th of April, i860, Senator John Sherman, in a speech 
at the Cooper Institute, New York, favored the idea of the "gradual 
colonization of the negro population of the United States in the 
Central American States, ' ' where they might be ' ' free from the 
domination of the white race." 

On the 7th of March, i860. Senator Wade, of Ohio, said, in the 
Senate of the United States : 

"This great Government owes it to various pressing considera- 
tions to provide a means whereby the free negroes may emigrate to 
some congenial clime, where they may be maintained to the mutual 
benefit of all. This would insure a separation of the races. Let 
them go into the tropics. There are vast tracts of most fertile and 
inviting lands, in a climate perfectly congenial to that class of men, 
where the negro will be predominant, where his nature seems to 
be improved, and all his faculties, both mental and physical, are 
fully developed, and where the white man degenerates in the same 
proportion as the black man prospers. Let them go there ; let them 
be separated ; it is easy to do it. They will be so far removed from 
us that they cannot form a disturbing element in omx political economy. 
... I hope, after that is done, to hear no more about negro 
equality, or anything of the kind. We shall be as glad to rid our- 
selves of these people as anybody else can." 

On the 2ist of August, 1858, at Ottawa, 111., Mr. Lincoln said: 

" I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality be- 
tween the white and black races. There is a physical difference 
between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably yi^r^z'^r for- 
bid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and, 
inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I 
am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior posi- 
tion." 

In the course of his canvass with Mr. Douglas, in Illinois, in 1858, 
Mr. Lincoln repeatedly declared that he was opposed to "a social 
and political equality between the white and black races ; " that he 
"was not in favor of negro citizenship; " and that he would "to 
th? very last stand by the law of Illinois which forbade the marriage 
of white people with negroes." He also declared that, in his 



POSTSCRIPT. 



337 



*' opinion, it would be best for all concerned to have the colored 
population in a State by themselves." 

Finally, in his messages to Congress and otherwise, Mr. Lincoln 
urgently advocated gradual eynancipation loith deportation. 

In his annual message, December 3, 1861, he said : 

" To carry out the plan of colonization may involve the acquiring 
of territory, and also the appropriation of money beyond that to 
be expended in the territorial acquisition. . . . If it be said that 
the only legitimate object of acquiring territory is to furnish homes 
for white men, this measure effects that object ; for the emigration 
of colored men leaves additional room for white men remaining or 
coming here. Mr. Jefferson, however, placed the importance of 
procuring Louisiana more on political diX\d commercial grounds than 
on providing room for population. 

" On this whole proposition, including the appropriation of money 
with the acquisition of territory, does not the expediency amount to 
absolute necessity — that without which the Government itself cannot 
be perpetuated .? " 

This amounts to an assertion by Mr. Lincoln that emancipation 
without deportation would be national suicide. 

But why tear from their homes, and from the "kind, protecting 
care" they then enjoyed, 4,000,000 of negroes, to banish them to 
the "frightful misery" of taking care of themselves in the Central 
American States? Did any idea of good will for the negroes enter 
into this scheme for their banishment? Surely not; for when Mr. 
R. M. T. Hunter, at the Hampton Roads conference, alluded to 
the sufferings which would result to the old and infirm, and to the 
women and children, who were unable to support themselves, the 
only answer was the following story, told by Mr. Lincoln : 

'"An Illinois farmer was congratulating himself with a neighbor 
upon a great discovery he had made, by which he could economize 
time and labor in gathering and taking care of the food crop for 
his hogs, as well as trouble in looking after and feeding them during 
the winter. 

" 'What is it?' said the neighbor. 

" ' Why, it is/ said the farmer, ' to plant plenty of potatoes, and 



338 POSTSCRIPT. 

when they mature, without either digging or housing them, turn the 
hogs in the field, and let them get their own food as they want it.' 

" 'But,' said the neighbor, 'how will that do when the winter 
comes, and the ground is hard frozen ? ' 

" 'Well,' said the farmer, 'let 'em root!' " 

(See the War between the States, by A. H. Stephens, vol. ii., p. 
615. Barrett's Life of Lincoln, p. 827.) 

From the inhumanity of saying to the old and infirm negroes, 
and to the women and children who were unable to support them- 
selves, '^'^ Root, hog, or die,''' the Southern people shrank with greater 
indignation than Plutarch felt for Cato. (See p. 275.) There was 
no trace of benevolence or pity for the negroes in that sentiment. 

Did an overcrowded territory require that the negroes should be 
driven out, like the Indians, to make additional room for white men? 
It is true that Mr. Lincoln's message of December 3, 1861, gives 
prominence to this argument, and his message of December i, 1862, 
elaborates the idea that the time is fast approaching when our popu- 
lation will have so increased, that, '^ instead of receiving the foreign- 
born, as 710W, we shall be compelled to send part of the native-born 
{the negroes) aivay. ' ' To show when that time would probably arrive, 
Mr. Lincoln, or rather Mr. Seward, (for his handiwork is clearly per- 
ceptible in both messages,) said : " Several of our States are already 
above the average of Europe — 73 J to a square mile. Massachu- 
setts has 157, Rhode Island 133, Connecticut 99, etc., etc." 

Then he gives a tabular statement of decennial increase, showing 
that in 1930 our population 7nay reach the overcrowded number of 
251,680,914; and concludes thus : 

" These figures show that our country may be as populous as 
Europe now is, at some point between 1920 and 1930 — say about 
1925 — our territory, at 73J persons to the square mile, being the 
capacity to contain 217,186,000." 

Now, this argument of Mr. Seward, and his ingenious sophistries 
about capital and labor in the same messages, were as false and as 
deceptive as his dogma of the irrepressible conflict between free labor 
and slave labor. They were adroitly and ably prepared for the 
express purpose of misleading and enticing the working and burgher 



POSTSCRIPT. 



339 



classes of the North into an indiscretion, a false step, against their 
natural dX\y 7mA politically-wedded spottse ; the consequence of which 
would be, and since has been, a declaration of the Attorney-General 
that labor is now a divorced grass-widow ! 

The so-miscalled Republican party were not acting in good faith 
with white labor when they endeavored, in 1861 and 1862, to make 
it appear that their purpose was to drive out the negroes to make 
additional room for the rapidly increasing white population. This is 
apparent from the fact that, since their object has been accomplished, 
by divorcing capital from labor by emancipation, we hear nothing 
more said about deporting the negroes. So far from being the spe- 
cial friends of the negroes, they were actuated by a malevolence to 
the negro almost as atrocious as Sherman's treatment of the women 
and children of the white working classes of Atlanta. This is ap- 
parent from the proposition to drive away the negroes from their 
comfortable homes, and say to their old and infirm and women and 
children, ^^ Root for yourselves, like liogs, or die /'' 

Moreover, in the same message, in speaking of our vast territory 
of 2,963,000 square miles, Mr. Seward admits that they furnish 
abundant room, a broad national homestead, an ample resource 
against an overcrowded condition for at least fifty years to come — 
perhaps much longer. Then, why drive the poor negro away now, 
into the Central American States, to Santo Domingo, or elsewhere f 

Mr. Seward, the Oily Gammon of politics, throws out a cautious 
intimation that, like Mr. Jefferson's acquisition of Louisiana, there 
was di political object to be gained. Bluff Ben Wade, in his bluff 
way, blurts out the true answer, and says, " The negroes form a dis- 
turbing eleme?it in our political economy." 

Why disturbing? We have already given the true answer, but it 
cannot be repeated too often. If Mr. Wade was candidly and con- 
fidentially explaining this disturbance to one of his party friends or 
followers, his language, substituting dashes for the oaths with which 
he sandwiches his discourse, would be about iis follows : 

" This peculiar institution, under which these negroes 

exist in this country, has peculiar results. , U mar- 
ries capital to labor. It makes the owners of negroes vote 

with the working-men in the North and West. they want 



340 POSTSCRIPT. 

to keep up wages, because wages go into their pockets. They 

legislate with a view to keep down the cost of living, because they 

have to feed and clothe and nurse and take care of the negroes, 

and that comes out of their pockets. And , they go in for 

what they call an honest and economical administration of the Gov- 
ernment, and they oppose our little occasional appropriations 

of a few millions or so, with which to enrich our party friends; and 

, they whine about these paltry millions coming partly out of 

their own pockets and partly out of the pockets of the work- 
ing and burgher classes of the North and West. But , these 

owners of negroes treat poor white men as equals. Now, 

all these disturbances of our political economy grow out of this 

rnarriage of capital to labor in the South. We must divorce them. 

We must separate the white from the negro race. We must send 

the negroes off into the tropics. Then Southern capital will 

vote with Northern and Western capital, and we can, by subtle and 
artful fiscal contrivances of legislation, impose as many burdens on 

the workmg-men, and grant as many privileges to capital, and 

make as many and as large appropriations for the benefit of our 

party friends as we please. And if we can get rid of these 

negroes by sending them away into the tropics, we can get 

rid of the democratic notion of the slave power about 

the equality of white men, which this peculiar institution 

fosters. ' ' 

As we have said, there can be no doubt that Mr. Seward prepared 
those portions of Mr. Lincoln's annual messages of 1861 and 1862 
relative to the deportation of the colored population. It is not to 
be supposed, however, that Mr. Lincoln would have sent those mes- 
sages to Congress without the concurrence and approval of the other 
members of his cabinet. These were S. P. Chase, Simon Cameron, 
Gideon Welles, Caleb B. Smith, Edward Bates, and Edwin M. 
Stanton. Now, if Mr. Lincoln and these his cabinet officers, and 
Senators Trumbull, Wade, and Sherman are to be accepted as the 
authorized exponents of the principles and policy of the so-miscalled 
Republican party, we have, in these messages and in the speeches 
of those senators, an official declaration of a purpose to drive the 
colored population out of the country, to make more room for white 



POSTSCRIPT. 341 

population, accompanied with the suggestion that it was a necessity, 
without which the Government itself could not be perpetuated ! 

Let the colored population bear this always in mind ! ! 

Let the white population of the North and West bear in mind 
that since then the so-miscalled Republican party have taken a new 
departure ! ! ! 

Now, instead of " sending the negro population into the Central 
American States, where they may be free I'rom the domination of 
the white race," they have subjected the white race in the South to 
the domination of the negro. Why this new departure ? Because 
they wish to use the cheaply purchasable votes of the negro freed- 
men to neutralize the votes of the white working and burgher 
classes of the North and West, and hope so to use 4,000,000 of 
negro freedmen as to secure to themselves the power to govern and 
tax 40,000,000 of whites. 

What Attorney-General Akerman says is tnie : ^^Emancipation 
has DIVORCED the interests of capital from the interests </ labor." 
By this divorce the working and burgher classes have lost their 
^' natural ally. '' Now, they must, single-handed and alone, resist 
the encroachments of power, and the "subtle and Artful fiscal con- 
trivances by which capital seeks to divide the wealth of all civilized 
communities so unequally, and to allot so small a share to those by 
whose labor it was produced, and so large a share to the non-pro- 
ducing classes." 

This divorce was intended to be, and is, complete and perpetual. 
It is a divorce a mensa et thoro and a vinculo. There is no api)eal. 
The decree is irreversible, and it forbids the parties from marrying 
again. No one at the North or West, not one in ten thousand at 
the South,' indulges in the delusive dream of a restoration of negro 
slavery. 

What remains? Much of hope and encouragement in the future 
of the working and burgher classes. With their eyes opened to the 
tricks by which centralism and capital cajoled them into a cru.sa(le 
against their natural allies, and by brute force "divorced cai)ital 
from labor by emancipation," they may find in the experience of the 
past a light to guide them in the future. If they would successfully 
resist the encroachments of power, and the artful contrivances of 
capital, they must go back to the political prin^ples of Washington, 



342 POSTSCRIPT. 

Jefferson, and Calhoun ; principles which Washington, Jefferson, 
and Calhoun termed republican, while the monarchists and capital- 
ists of New England, in derision and by way of reproach, called 
them democratic. 

A few more words to the National Labor party. On the 25th of 
January, 1871, their committee, under a resolution of the National 
Labor Congress held at Cincinnati, in August, 1870, called a conven- 
tion to meet at Columbus, Ohio, at 10 0' dock, A. M., on the third 
Wednesday of October, 187 1, for the purpose of. nominating candi- 
dates for the offices of President and Vice-President of^the United 
States, and the transaction of such other business as may properly 
come before them. 

On the 29th of May, 1871, H. M. Turner, (negro,) as President 
of the Georgia State Convention, issued a proclamation addressed 
' ' to the colored citizens of the States of Alabama, Arkansas, Dela- 
ware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, Maryland, 
Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Vir- 
ginia, West Virginia, and the Territory of Columbia." 

This proclamation calls a convention of the colored citizens of the 
States above naAed to meet at Columbia, S. C. , on the 1 8//i day of 
October, iS^i, at 12 o'clock, M. 

Now let the working and burgher classes of the North and West 
take special notice of these dates! Why this call, in May, 1871, 
for a negro convention at Columbia on the same day in October 
selected by the committee of the National Labor party as early as 
January, 187 1 ? 

It is another trick of imperialism and capital to organize ihe 
negro vote of all the Southern States in the interest of imperialism 
and capital, and to neutralize by that negro vote of the Southern States 
any action that may be taken at Columbus, Ohio, by the working 
and burgher classes of the North and West, against the interests of 
imperialism and capital. 

Look into and think about the purposes and objects of this little 
trick / 

Ben. E. Green, 

Washington, yune \2ih, 1871, 



ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Supplement to the Fourth Annual Report of the Special Commission- 
ers OF THE Revenue. Cost of Labor and Subsistence in the United 
States. Tables showing the comparative and average Weekly Wages 
paid, etc., etc. Prepared by Edward Young, in charge ok the Bu- 
reau of Statistics. Washington : Government Printing-Ofkice. 1S70. 

THE/oregoing is the title of an official document sent to us by a 
Member of Congress,* to convince us, by the statistics it pro- 
fesses to give, that we are wrong in our historic theory that one of 
the main purposes and results of the late civil war was to reduce 
wages and increase the cost of living. 

On careful examination, we find this document remarkable alike 
for the absurdity of its multitudinous errors, and for the very man- 
ifest purpose of deception, with which it has been carefully and 
elaborately prepared, as a campaign document, to mislead and </!,•■<//« 
betray the working and burgher classes into the support of the (so- 
miscalled) Republican party. 

In seventy-five octavo pages the Bureau of Statistics gives sixty- 
seven tables of figures, doubtless supposing that no one would ever 
take the trouble to wade through them. 

The first fifty-eight tables are intended to produce the impression 
that, under the policy of the (so-;;«Vcallcd) Republican Admmistra- 
tion, there has been an increase in wages, amounting to an average 
of forty-eight per cent., as summed up in Table 57, on page 57, as 
follows : 

*Hon. John Coburn, of Indiana. 

343 



344 



ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



Table showing the percentage of Increase in Monthly Wages, with Board, paid for 
Farm and other Labor, in the United States, in 1869 over i860. 



States. 



Maine 

New Hampshire 

Vermont 

Massachusetts 

Rhode Island 

Connecticut 

New York 

New Jersey 

Pennsylvania 

Delaware 

Maryland 

West Virginia 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Illinois 

Michigan 

Wisconsin 

Minnesota 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Nebraska 

Missouri 

Kentucky 

Virginia 

North Carolina 

South Carolina 

Georgia* 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Texas 

Arkansas 

Tennessee 

Average in United States, exclusive of Pacific 
States and the Territories 



y.B 


■a c 


E 


c 


AS . 


i 


f/^ 


s- 


bi 


tt 


ro^. 


ui 


■g-o-^ 


ii'o _ 


c-u'^ 


c-o ^ 


E?^ 


US 


0. f^ fe 


°-5 ■- 


^ s s 




e Ji rt 


B S 


H^6 


H-= " 


0-= E 


O-C" 


c3-^^ 


fe > 


55 


48 


45 


45 


36 


44 


4b 


46 


45 


33 


55 


64 


65 


59 


62 


59 


53 


75 


60 


58 


62 


7b 


58 


59 


57 


80 


50 


100 


67 


100 


88 


50 


67 


50 


«7 


75 


66 


57 


55 


50 


55 


93 


81 


76 


81 


81 


qb 


8q 


64 


70 


59 


64 


51 


b5 


43 


20 


50 


29 




100 


67 


75 


60 


50 


60 


100 


3« 


38 


40 


42 


25 


40 


4« 


48 


40 


45 


44 


59 


S6 


60 


41 


33 


42 


47 


46 


42 


42 


40 


50 


bq 


62 


64 


53 


60 


62 


53 


42 


42 


42 


31 


36 


44 


60 


59 


66 


58 


69 


59 


50 


48 


5b 


51 


54 


61 


35 


• 6q 


58 


32 


48 


48 


a^ 


83 


67 


50 


50 


46 


65 


37 


65 


75 


b3 


102 


28 


37 


32 


20 


27 


29 


22 


15 


21 


18 


15 


25 


40 


26 


25 


15 


25 


38 


36 


25 


33 


3a 


19 


50 


II 


20 


I 


9 


10 


17 


3° 


26 


25 


27 


15 


16 


46 


54 


4b 


66 


50 


20 


88 


»5 


60 


31 


34 


33 


54 


71 


24 


40 


38 


15 


35 


48 


37 


66 


50 


20 


23 


26 


27 


24 


38 


40 


51 


51 


47 


46 


46 


SI 



* The percentages of increase here given, although accurately computed, do not indicate the 
true advance in the wages paid. This arises from the fact that while there were nineteen returns 
from Georgia giving the wages in 1869, but six of them gave those of 1S60. The true increase in 
the monthly wages paid in 1869 over i860 was about 23 per cent, instead of 11. 



Under the heading, " Expenses of Living," Tables 59 to 66, 
both included, (pages 58 to 73,) are intended to produce the im- 
pression that the cost of living has been reduced, while wages have 
gone up 48 per cent, on an average. In order to make this appear, 
the Bureau of Statistics selects the years 1867 and 1869 for compar- 
ison, and gives prominence to wheat flour, which, for New England, 
it puts at ^12.35 in 1867, and ^9.15 in 1869; for the Middle States, 
at ^12.50 in 1867, and ^7.85 in 1869 ; for a portion of th'e Western 



ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 345 

States, at $12.71 in 1867, and $6.41 in 1869; for other Western 
States and Territories, at $8.67 in 1867, and §5.35 in 1869 ; and for 
the Southern States, at $10.72 in 1867, and $9.50 in 1869, 
The poet says : 

" Oh ! what a tangled web we weave 
When first we jiractise to deceive." 

The Bureau of Statistics, absorbed in its figures, had never read 
these lines, or did not appreciate the exhortation to honest deahng 
which they contain ; or else it relied on its formidable array of 
figures to deter any one from attempting to unravel its tangled web 
of deceit. It is obvious that the Bureau was '' practising to deceive" 
when it selected the years 1867 and 1869, and gave this prominence 
to the varying price of wheat flour, in order to produce the impres- 
sion on the working and burgher classes that the effect of Radical 
policy had been to reduce the cost of living. For, this difference 
in the price of flour was caused, not by any beneficial influence of 
Radical policy, but partly by the difference in the seasons, and partly 
by that subtle and artful fiscal contrivance, by which the wheat-grow- 
ers of the West are placed in the power of the great moneyed aristo- 
cracy for the means, with which to move their crops to market ; there- 
by enabling Eastern capital to depress the price of Western wheat 
at pleasure. 

But even admitting that the Bureau's figures are correct and reli- 
able, (which they are not,) they disprove the very idea, which this 
elaborate document was concocted to sustain. For on i)ages 74 and 
75 we have a table of the "comparative cost of building-materials, 
and of dwelling-houses," in 1861 and 1869, which shows that "the 
true average increase in the cost of materials and labor ret/tiired in 
building a dwelling-house suitable for workmen 7vas %% per cent.'' 

Now, this is a much more reliable criterion of the increase or 
decrease of the cost of living than the difference between the cost 
of wheat flour in 1867 and 1869 ; and even if it were true that wages 
had advanced 48 per cent, from i860 to 1869, how arc the working 
and burgher classes benejited, when that increase of wages is accom- 
panied by an increase of 88 per cent, in the cost of living? 

As to Table 57, page 57, (above quote<l,) which pretends to show 



346 ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

the percentage of increase in monthly wages, with board, etc., we 
know that in Georgia, where we have lived since 1855, and we be- 
lieve that in the other Southern States, instead of an increase of 23, 
or even 11 per cent., there has been an actual decrease of from 25 
to 50 per cent, on a general average, and not taking into account 
the exceptional cases of high wages paid for hands in some of the 
swindling railroad operations, based on State bonds, which, if not 
repudiated, will bankrupt the States for the profit of a few individual 
carpet-baggers and scalawags. 

Neither can we believe that this table is reliable as to the Eastern, 
Middle, and Western States. 

First, because we know that it is wrong as to Georgia, and believe 
it to be wrong as to other Southern States. 

Secondly, because it is obviously got up with great care in the in- 
terest of the Radical party, and with a premeditated design to "prac- 
tise to deceive." 

Thirdly, because, as the Bureau of Statistics admits, in an intro- 
ductory note, it is '■'■the result, mainly, of inquiries made through 
the assistant assessors of internal revenue in the various collection 
districts of the United States'' — a very unreliable authority. 

Finally, because a mere reading of Table 65, on page 72, which 
professes to give a summary of the results of all these inquiries and 
figures, will show to any man of common sense that it is utterly 
unreliable, not to use the much stronger language which the absurd- 
ities of that table would suggest. 

It is as follows : 



ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 



347 



Table showing the average Weekly Expenditores of Workmen's Familiks ih somb o» 
THE Manufacturing Towns of the United States in i»69. 



Articles. 



Bread and flour 

Meat of all kinds 

Lard 

Butter 

Cheese 

Sugar and molasses 

Milk 

Coffee 

Tea 

Fish, fresh and salt 

Soap and starch 

Salt, pepper, and vinegar 

Eggs 

Potatoes and other vegetables 

Fruits, fresh and dried 

Fuel 

Oil or other light 

Other articles 

Spirits, beer, and tobacco 

House rent 

Taxes 

For benevolent objects 



Total per week (clothiag ex- 
cepted) 



So- 75 

1-25 
24 

I. CO 
20 

69 

59 
30 
63 
10 
25 
12 

30 

30 

30 

1. 00 

30 
I. II 



H-50 



14.32 



i) 








u 


u 






^ 







2 




<2 


> 


-« 


V 

> 




& 


C_4 


"2 F 


•Si 


•a c 

St: 


Ss 




?p 


^P 


c 
^ 










TJ 


-0 


rt-3 


"•o 


a 




:ii- 


'£'£ 


2'^ 




i'r 


— !2 


a'r 


a 






S " 










c u 


u 


u 


a 


s; 


t 


V 


y 


y 


f! 




















Si 


p4 


c^ 


&, 


a, 


b 


0. 


0. 





^0.78 


$0.85 


$o.gs 


J1.29 


Si-37 


;?i-73 


$2.50 


$2-37 


<'-39 


1.60 


1-75 


1.92 


2.21 


3-09 


2.92 


3-"- 


4.68 


2.481 


33 


33 


44 


40 


35 


bi 


33 


6i 


39{ 


71 


b2 


1. 10 


1.26 


98 


1-3S 


1.32 


2.88 


1.27) 


12 


14 


16 


20 


II 


26 


22 


18 


16 


74 


92 


92 


1. 18 


85 


1.18 


76 


1.80 


1. 00 


41 


44 


37 


50 


58 


26 


56 


1.36 


55 


20 


23 


32 


32 


34 


34 




65 


3° 


23 


39 


3» 


4b 


57 


75 


SO 


35 


47 


13 


25 


20 


22 


24 


23 


20 


16 


»9 


17 


22 


17 


23 


25 


18 


16 


54 


84 


og 


ob 


12 


12 


II 


18 


10 


30 


13 


25 


21 


24 


29 


»5 


06 


20 


58 


as 


44 


61 


47 


73 


80 


60 


40 


88 


s« 


26 


33 


21 


42 


46 


27 


50 


62 


39 


9b 


74 


1.09 


1.20 


1-13 


88 


1. 21 


1.50 


1.08 


22 


25 


23 


21 


23 


19 


16 


22 


23 


22 


54 


21 


21 


20 


35 




38 


35 


23 


02 


13 


35- 


, *^ 


27 


05 


12 


16 


2.17 


2.23 


2.29 


2.17 


*3-34 


2.25 


2.25 


2.56 


2.64 


37 


03 


12 


05 


24 


18 




30 


13 


34 


5« 


40 


34 


25 


30 
15-36 


2.00 


60 


57 


10.97 


11.96 


12.44 


13-36 


16.11 


16.42 


2544 


14-93 



i" 



?> 99 
3.46 

33 

1. 12 
26 

1. 01 
46 

as 
46 
t 

II 
36 

9» 
22 

73 
t 
2.14 



14.99 



* The increased cost of house rent, and the use of more e.\pensive provisions, render the expense* 
of these families higher than some of larger size. 

fNot furnished in 1867. Deducting these, the average weekly expenses of families in 1869, as 
compared with 1867, will be reduced to I13.88. 

This table presents results that would make Malthus, dead as lie 
is, open his eyes with astonishment. We earnestly recommend to 
all, who are contemplating obedience to the Scriptural injunction, 
^'increase and multiply,'''' to study it carefully. It would be too 
tedious to point out all its peculiarities. A few will suffice to direct 
attention to the others. 

ist. According to this table, the average expense per week of a 
workman and wife with seven children for bread and flour is J2.50; 
with eight children, only I2.37. 

2d. With six children, their average weekly expense for lard will 
be 6t, cents ; with seven children, only n cents. 

3d. Their average weekly expense for butter will be, without 
children, ^i.oo; with one child, only 71 cents; with two children, 
82 cents; with three children, ^i.io; with four children, ^1.26; 
with five children, only 98 cents, etc., etc. 



348 ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 

4th. Their average weekly expense for cheese will be, without 
children, 20 cents; with one child, 12 cents; with two children, 14 
cents ; with three children, 16 cents; with four children, 20 cents; 
with five children, 11 cents; and with eight children, 18 cents. 

5th. Their average weekly expense, without children, for sugar 
and molasses, will be 69 cents; with four children, $1.18; with 
seven children, only 76 cents. 

6th. Their average weekly expense for milk will be, without 
children, 59 cents; with one child, 41 cents; with two children, 
44 cents ; with three children, 37 cents ; with four children, 50 
cents; with five children, 58 cents; with six children, 26 cents; 
with seven children, 56 cents; and with eight children, ^1.26. 

Finally, and funniest of all — even funnier than the allowance, 
on a general average, of 59 cents for milk to a workman and wife 
without children, and only 26 cents for a workman and wife with 
six children — is the Bureau's estimate for soap and starch :j 

It allows to a man and wife without children, per week 25 cents. 
with I child, " 17 " 

2 children, " 22 " 

3 " " 17 " 

4 " " 23 " 

5 " " 25 " 

6 " " 18 " 
■J " " 16 " 
8 " " 54 " 

Without wasting more time, the reader will find similar absurdities 
running through the whole of this and other tables of this precious 
production of the Radical Bureau of Statistics. It might excite mer- 
riment and laughter, if indignation at such palpable partisan patch- 
work would admit of pleasantry. But the question is too serious for 
mirth. These tables have been laboriously prepared in the interest 
of the monarchical, aristocratic, cheap-labor party, and on the sup- 
position that the great mass of the people of the United States — 
lawyers, doctors, ministers of the gospel, merchants, civil engineers, 
etc. , etc. , as well as the working-men — were too busy with their own 
private affairs, or too ignorant, to discover and expose the deceit 
attempted to be practised upon them by this array of figures. 

When we examined the figures, we thought, surely, these must be 
typographical errors. We therefore called upon Mr. Edward 
Young, at the Bureau of Statistics, in the Treasury Department, 
and asked him whether there were any typographical errors in 



ADDENDA TO TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 349 

his tables. He said, "No." We then asked him to explain by 

what process of computation he arrived at such wonderful results, 
according to which a husband and wife, without children, required 
25 cents' worth of soap and starch per week; with one child, only 
17 cents; with six children, 18 cents ; and with seven childen, only 
16 cents. 

The reply, not very courteously given, was: "That table has 
been criticized before, and where there is a determination to criti- 
cize, anything may be criticized." Pursuing information under diffi- 
culties, we persisted, and at last drew out this explanation, viz. that 
the first nine columns of figures do not represent averat^es, as the 
heading would indicate, but only the expenditures of single selected 
families, the averages being given in the tenth and eleventh columns, 
so as to show a reduction in the cost of living from 1S67 to 1869. 

Our interview with the Bureau of Statistics convinced us that its 
tables were manufactured solely for partisan purposes, and are 
utterly unreliable, except in so far as they show, on page 75, that 
the true average increase in the cost of materials and labor recpiired 
in building a dwelling-house suitable for workmen has been 88 per 
cent, in the ten years that the so-miscalled Republican party have 
been in power. 



CONTENTS. 



fACK 

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE yU 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE Ixti 

CHAPTER I. 

GENERAL IDEA OF THE PROLETARIAT. 

The working classes do not exist among all peoples — Wliy ? — No one has 
dreamed of writing their historj' — Gap which the absence of that history 
leaves in politics — The working classes come from the proletariat — Mod- 
em signification of this word — The proletariat comprises working-men, 
beggars, thieves, and prostitutes 8 1 

CHAPTER n. 

ORIGIN OF THE PROLETARIAT. 

Political prejudices which the history of the four branches of the proletariat 
ought to dispel — The proletariat produced by the emancipation of slaves 

— Among all peoples before the emancipation of slaves there were neither 
working-men, nor beggars, nor thieves, nor prostitutes — Why ? — By Chri'^ • 
tianity the proletaries greatly multiplied — Slavery having preceded the 
proletariat among all peoples, whence comes that universal slavery which 

is thus found among all peoples ? — Is it a natural or violent fact ? . .86 

CHAPTER HI. 

ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 

The first epoch of every society contains two classes of men, masters and 
slaves — This fact anterior to all institutions, and therefore not instituted 

— In what sense slavery may be said to be by divine right — Slavery is a 
primitive and spontaneous element of all societies — The history of the 
masters gives the history of the slaves — Whence come masters? — Tlie 
first masters the first fathers— Of tlie paternal power in noI)lc families — 
Names designating these families in the Greek and Latin poets — Sii^ifi- 
cation of the word ftus — Paternal power absolute in noble families — 

7 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Proofs establishing this fact — Fathers could kill or sell their children — 
The first children therefore the first slaves — This is the only theory by 
which all the facts relative to slaveiy can be explained — Multiplicity of 
children in the first families , 95 

CHAPTER IV. 

ORGANIZATION OF SLAVERY BY POSITIVE LAWS. 

Political institutions, having found slavery already established as a fact in the 
family, generalized it as a right in society — New sources of slavery opened 
by positive laws — War — Asylums — Debt — Marriage — Explanation of 
a passage of Homer — Slavery, then, became an institution in course of 
time ; but it commenced as a spontaneous fact — Positive laws sanctioned 
and regulated, but did not create it — Every other theory contradicted by 
facts — The noble and slave races, therefore, two primitive and contempo- 
raneous facts — ^Together they constitute humanity — This volume devoted 
to the history of the slave races : that of the noble races will be treated 
of in another ............ lo8 

CHAPTER V. 

EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES AND FORMATION OF BURGHERS. 

Meaning of the words free race and slave race in this book — Slaves lived 
apart, multiplied among themsel\'$i?, and ended by becoming a distinct race 
of men — Their food — Their maladies — Until what epoch pure slavery 
continued among nations — Beggars and hirelings indicate the commence- 
ment of emancipations — Why? — The ancients did not practise sys- 
tematic emancipations — Christianity multiplied emancipations and. swelled 
the mass of proletaries — The slave race always scoffed at, even by the 
freedmen — Roman emperors who had been slaves — Emancipated slaves, 

repelled from the society of the nobles, form a society of their own . 

This is the commune 117 

CHAPTER VI. 

GENERAL IDEA OF THE COMMUNE — TWO KINDS. 

The commune, the government proper for freedmen, is, then, a universal 
historic element — The author dissents from received opinions on this sub- 
ject — Ideas of M. Raynouard about the commimes — Ideas of M. Au- 
gustin Thierry — These two contradictory systems both refuted by facts — 
Ideas of M. Guizot — They are correct, but incomplete — We must distin- 



CONTENTS. Q 

gnish between the spontaneous and the artificial commune — What ihc 
author understands by these words — Analysis of a passage of Auhis Gel- 
lius, misunderstood by M. Raynouard — Comparison of the French com- 
munes of the time of Philip Augustus with the Greek communes of the 
time of Pericles l ,| 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE FRENCH COMMUNE. 

In what the right of commune consists — Charter of Autun — Different 
names for the commune — The names various, the essence alwavs the 
same — Errors of M. Augustin Thierry, who only recognizes a commune 
by the name communia, and by the insurrectional conspiracy, giving to its 
magistrates the name ai juris — Communes which are not called com- 
munia — Jures who have not conspired — Error of those who believe that 
the commune only dates from the twelfth century — Communes existed in 
all ages of history — Communes formed from the sixth to the eleventh 
century — French communes are of two kinds, one of Roman origin, the 
other indigenous — Communes formed by freedmen recently set free — 
Passage in the chronicle of the anonymous canon of Laon misunder- 
stood by M. Augustin Thierry — Communes contain two kinds of men — 
Interior organization of a commune — Error of the constituent assembly. 138 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SYMPTOMS OF THE ANCIENT COMMUNE — HIRELINGS AND BEGGARS. 

What the author understands by the ancient commune — Why he relics upon 
the Bible — The existence of hirelings and beggars indicate the existence 
of communal government — Why ? — Beggars in the Odyssey and in 
Hesiod; none in the Iliad — Explanation of two passages of llomcr . 151 

CHAPTER IX. 

SYMPTOMS OF THE ANCIENT COMMUNE — ARCHITECTURE. 

Walled cities were communal cities — History of architecture not written — 
The author gives a partial sketch of it— Radical difference between iso- 
lated castles and associated houses — The tower for the gentlemen, the 
party-wall for two burghers — Why noble families have necessarily iuhab- 
ited isolated castles — Signification of a tower in architecture — Expl.ma- 
tion of a passage in Horace —Character of noble houses — Castles of 
Patroclus, Hector, yEneas, King Demetrius, Herod the Great, Augustus, 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGS 

Velleda, Ulysses, Alcibiades, Asidates, Gobryas — Platform, battlement, 
machicolation — Associated houses — Formation of cities — All have a 
castle for their centre — The Acropolis of Athens, the Palace of France, 
The Tower of London — Town and city — Open and walled towns — ■ 
Open towns belonged to nobles — Sparta — Walled towns were communal 

— Why ? — Houses associated in walled towns — Hotel de ville of Tegea 

— History of the Roman party-wall — The wall of enclosure the necessary 
complement of houses built in blocks — The wall of enclosure and the 
party -wall infallible signs of burghers , . . . . . .156 

CHAPTER X. 

SYMPTOMS OF THE ANCIENT COMMUNE JURISPRUDENCE. 

The author sketches the history of property — Noble and burgher property 

— Their characteristics — Burgher property only found in walled cities — 
Noble property only found without walls — The existence of walled towns 
proves the existence of burghers — There were communes in the walled 
towns — At Jericho, Troy, Gortyna, and Calydon .... 1 73 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE PEASANTS. 

Historians have forgotten the peasants — Why ? — This forgetfulness renders 
general history incomplete — The history of the peasants requires the pre- 
vious history of the landed proprietors — Sketch of this — There was a 
Greek and Roman feudality anterior to the emancipation of the communes 
in Italy and Greece — Proofs of this fact — The words vassal and arriere 
^'axva/ belong to the ancient Roman law — Proofs — The expression r^^ 
of the glebe found in a law of Honorius and Theodosius — What proletaries 
were in the ancient Roman law — Foundation of towns and villages — 
Exact idea of the peasants of antiquity — Law of the Emperor Anastasius 

— Revolution in the cultivation of lands — Different kinds of peasants — 
The words gentleman, chevalier (knight), baron, count, marquis, duke, 
prince, taken from the Latin language — Establishment of fairs among the 
ancients 182 

CHAPTER XII. 

ANCIENT trades' UNIONS FORMATION. 

Slaves having attained the commune, or feudalism, some labor, and form the 
trades' unions ; others do not labor, and become beggars and thieves — 
Trades' unions existed from the time of Solomon in Judea; from the time 



CONTENTS. II 



rAci 



of Theseiis in Greece; from the time of Numa in Italy — Proofs — Three 
epochs in the Roman trades' unions — Purpose and use of these unions — 
Their employment by government — Two kinds of Roman trades' unions 

— Commercial unions — Industrial unions — Number and functions of the 
first — Sailors — Bakers — Butchers — Internal organization Enumera- 
tion of the industrial unions jqg 

CHAPTER XIII. 

ANCIENT trades' UNIONS — DEVELOPMENT. 

Transition of the Roman unions from the free to the obligatory state His- 
tory of their reform up to the time of Trajan — They become a necessary 
corps — Members could not leave — They could not sell their property — 
The unions seized upon the person, property, and family of every member 

— Their inconveniences — Their advantages — Their revenues — Their 
endowments — Their privileges — Their legacies — AlienabiUty of their 
property — Their flourishing epoch 213 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ANCIENT trades' UNIONS — THEIR FALL. 

Tlieir decline commenced with Constantine — Its cause — They were respon- 
sible for part of the taxes — They were victims of the insolvency of the 
farmers of the domain — Ruined by the foolish extravagance of the empe- 
rors — Caligula — Claudius — Nero — Disorganization of the unions — 
They reclaim their fugitive members — Their fragments — Later, one of 
these fragments formed the Commune of Paris 225 

CHAPTER XV. 

BEGGARS AND HOSPITALS. 

Beggars are not ancient — Wiy? — Few when Christianity came — Roman 
beggars — The ancients had no hospitals — Christianity multiplied the 
poor — Pauperism in Italy at the end of the fourth century — \Miy Giris- 
tianity multiplied the poor — Foundation of hospitals — Diflercnt kinds . 235 

CHAPTER XVI. 

LITERARY SLAVES. 

Three kinds of slaves seek to rise above their condition — Literary slaves — 
Courtesans — Bandits — Slaves only cuiUvate some literary specialties — 



12 CONTENTS. 

rAGB 

Slave grammarians — Their history — Slaves do not cultivate rhetoric — 
Why ? — History written by gentlemen — Slave poets and buffoons — Their 
history — Slave philosophers — Their history ...... 243 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE COURTESANS. 

Courtesans of houses of debauch — They were slaves — Slave merchants — 
Their skill in the toilette of women — Freedwomen — Their talent — 
Their luxury — Their influence — Error of the French elegy-writers of the 
eighteenth century — Nearly all these freedwomen were Greeks — Their 
devotion — Their domestic life — Gentlemen visited'them — The soiree — 
Nightly brawls — Serenades — The mother — Their toilette — Dress — 
Errors of the moderns as to dress of ancients — The bath — Importance 
of swimming among the ancients — Perfumed soap — Avarice of the freed- 
women — Twenty-three odes of Horace addressed to freedwomen — Ci- 
nara — Thargelia — Theodota — Timandra — Lais — Flora — Aspasia — 
Praecia 258 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

BANDITS. 

The ancients had no idea of the equality of men — Homer, Plato, and Aris- 
totle believed in the duality of human nature — Slaves believed in the 
legitimacy of slavery — Anecdote — Slaves revolt from other motives than 
ideas of liberty — Ten slave revolts — Caused by tampering with them, by 
harshness of masters, and by failure to execute the laws — History of the 
three last revolts — Eunus the Syrian — Athenion — Spartacus — Revolted 
slaves did not preach the doctrine of equality — Thieves and pirates result 
from slave revolts — Guards — Troops (gendarmerie) — Brigand bands of 
10,000 men — The brigand Tabary — The pirates — Their history — They 
were slaves — Agathocles . _ 274 

CHAPTER XIX. 

MODERN trades' UNIONS. 

Objection to the historic theory of this book — Why were there no communes 
nor trades' unions in France before the twelfth century? — Answer — In 
what the barbarisjn of the barbarians of the North consisted — The revo- 
lutions in the family serve to measure degrees of civilization — The peoples 
of the North had passed through fewer phases of the family — This con- 
stituted their barbarism — Backset impressed on the Roman world by the 



CONTENTS. 13 



PAGI 



invasion — Error of Vico — The invasion suspended emancipations — 
Everything recommenced in Gaul — Seven centuries required for (Jaul to 
get back to the point where the invasion found it — Condition of Gaul at 
the time of the invasion — Error of the Abbe Dubos, Montesquieu, and M. 
de Savigny — The barbarians destroyed the trades' unions incompletely — 
Traces of trades' unions through the middle ages — Trades' unions organ- 
ized under St. Louis — The public powers that governed Paris — PrevOt of 
merchants — Pr^vot of Paris — Stephen Boileau regulates the trades' 
imions — The register of trades contains the statutes of one hundred pro- 
fessions — The trades' unions considered in their relation to the State — 
Authorization — Considered in relation to their members — Libert)' — Ap- 
prentices — Conditions of apprenticeship — Unions considered in them- 
selves — Administration — Community and fraternity — Invocation of 
saints — The corps and the trades (metiers) — The prud'hommes — Juris- 
diction — The six corps of Paris — Their history — Their heraldiy — Use- 
fulness of trades* unions — Causes of their fall — Blindness of the con- 
stituent assembly 2S9 

CHAPTER XX. 

Summary •• 3^7 

Postscript to Translator's Preface 3^9 

Addenda to Translator's Preface 343 

Index to Translator's Preface 35' 



INDEX 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE AND NOTES. 



ADAMS, JOHN, xiv., xvii., xxiii. 
Adams, John Q., xx., xl. 
Adams, Samuel, xx. 
Akerman, Attorney-General, xxix., xlix. 
Alaric, 296. 

Alexander the Great, 303. 
Amalgamation, xlvii. 
Anderson, Gen. Robert, xliv. 
Angouleme, 149. 
Appropriate music, 305. 
Armstrong, Gen., xl. 
Art and artists, 305. 
Asiatic slave trade, xlvii. 
Atlanta, burned by Sherman, 295. 
Attila, 296. 

Benjamin, J. P., xlvi. 

Blair, Francis P., xxxvi.-xl., xliii. 

Blood-letting, xlv. 

Boston, vi^orking women in, 1. 

Boulogne, 149. 

Breckenridge, John C., xli. 

Bribery at elections, xxvii. 

British policy, xxxix. 

Brown, John, xliv., 277, 305. 

Brown, Jos. E., Gov. of Ga.,xxxv., xlvi. 

Buchanan, President James, xii., xlv. 

Bullock, Rufus K.,Gov. of Ga., 276, 281. 

Burlingame's mission to China, lix. 

Burning, see W. Tecumseh Sherman. 

Calhoun, James M., 297. 

Calhoun, John C, xxxiii., xxxvii., 87. 

Cameron, Simon, 340. 

Capital divorced from labor, xxix., xlix. 

Cassagnac, A. G. de, viii., xxxii., 

xxxviii., 87. 
Catholics, Roman, 295. 
Census of 1S60, xlvii. 
Chandler, Zach., Senator, xlv. 
Chase, Salmon P., xxvii., xxxi., xxxviii. 
Chinese labor, food, and wages, liii. 



Cincinnati Commercial, liii. 

Classes, struggle of, xxx. 

Clephane, Lewis, xliii. 

Coburn, Col. John, captor of Atlanta, 299, 

343- 
Columbia, District of, 14S. 
Columbia, S. C, 293. 
Colwell, Stephen, vii. 
Commune, right of, 148. 
Connecticut Reserve, 295. 
Consolidation, xxi. 

Contracts for army and navy supplies, xlv, 
Covode investigating committee, xxvii. 
Crockery. See W. T. Sherman. 
Crusades, effects of, xxiv. 
Curtis's Pac. R. R. bill, xli. 

Davis, Jefferson, xi. 

Delescluze, 307. 

Delilah and Samson, 273. 

District of Columbia, 148. 

Disunion resolutions at Worcester, 

Mass., xlii. 
Divorce of capital from labor, xxix., Ixi. 
Douglas, Stephen A., xli. 

Edict of Moulins, 148. 

Federalists, xx. 

Female influence on government, 27a. 
P'reedmaa's Bureau, 127, 14S. 
Fullerton, Gen. J. S., 127. 

Genghis Khan, 296. 

Georgetown, D. C., 149. 

Georgetown College, viii. 

Giles, Gov. of Virginia, xxi. 

Goodloe, Daniel R., xliii., 281. 

Gordon, Gen. John H., Ixiv. 

Grand Army of the Republic, xix., 266, 

292. 
Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., xviii.-xix., 292. 
Grass widows, Ixi. 

35» 



352 INDEX TO TRANSLATOR S PREFACE AND NOTES, 



Greeley, Horace, xliv. 

Green, Gen. Duff, xi., xli., xlv. 

Guizot, Mons., ix.— x., xxx., 148. 

Hamilton, Gov. of S. C., xxxvii. 

Hampton, Gen. Wade, 293. 

Harlan, Sec. of Interior, 274. 

Harper's Ferry, xliv., 277, 305. 

Harvard University, xvii. 

Henry, John, British agent in Boston, 

xxxix. 
Heraldry and genealog}'', xvii. 
Holden, Gov. of N. C., 150, 276, 280. 
Hood, Gen., 303. 
Howard, Gen. O. O., 126,' 311. 

Imperialist, newspaper, xix. 
Incendiarism. See John Brown and 

W. T. Sherman. 
Intermarriage of whites and blacks, xlvii. 

Jefferson, Thos., xxi., xxviii. 
Jenkins's life of Calhoun, xxxvi. 
Johnson, Andrew, xlviii. 
Johnson, Herschel V., xli. 
Journal of Commerce, xlii. 

Koopmanschap, lii. 

Labor statistics, (Mass.,) xlix. 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., xlviii., 329. 

Lincoln, Abraham, xi., xl., xli., xlv., 272. 

Lippincott's Magazine, xvii. 

Logan, Grand Commander, 266, 292. 

Marietta, Ga., burned by Sherman, 305. 
Massachusetts, xlii., xlix., 295, 305. 
Memphis Commercial Convention, xxi., 

Ixi. 
Middle States, xvi. 
Music, appropriate, 305. 

New England : 

Cheap labor, xxvii.— xlix. 

Monarchical and aristocratic, xiv. 

Slave-trading, xxiii. 
New York Herald, 127. 
New York Times, li. 
New York Tribune, 127. 
Nicholas, Judge, of Kentucky, xiii. 
Nichols, Brevet Maj. Geo. Ward, 303. 
Non-slaveholders, xlvii. 
North Carolina outrages, 229, 279. 
Northwestern Territory, xli., 295, 305. 
Nullification, xxxvi. 

Pacific Railroad, xli. 
Party names, xx. 



Peons, 332. 

Pickett, Col. John T., 329. 

Porus, 303. 

Rawlings, Gen., xix. 

Raymond, H. J., li. 

Rheims, 149. 

Rhett, R. B., xlvi. 

Ritchie, Thomas, xxvi.-xl. 

Rome, Ga., burned. See Sherman. 

Scott, Gov. of S. C, 276, 281, 311. 
Seward, Wm. H., xxvii.-xxxi., • 

xxxviii. -xxxix., 338. 
Seymour, Horatio, liv. 
Sherman, Gen. W. Tecumseh, 292. 
Sherman, Senator John, 303. 
Slaveholders, xlvii. 
Smith, Rev. J. B., 230, 278. 
Sprague, Senator, xxxi., Ixi, 
Steadman, Gen. J. B., 127. 
Stephens, Alex. H., xiii. 
Sumner, Senator Charles, x. 
Sylla, xix. 

Toombs, Robert, xlvi. 
Toulouse, 149. 

University of Alabama burned, 306. 

See Sherman. 
University of Virginia, viii. 
Usher, Sec. of Interior, 274. 

Van Buren, Martin, xl. 
Virginia, xli., 295. 

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 
xxxvi. 

Wade, Ben, xlvi., 336, 339. 

Walker, Gen. W. S., Ixiv. 

Washburne, U. S. Minister at Paris, 296. 

Washington City, 149. 

Webster, Daniel, xli., 295, 305. 

Weitzel, Gen., xii. 

West Indies, 119. 

Wilderness, battles of, 296. 

Wilson, Bill, 130. 

Wilson, Senator Henry, 172, 274. 

Wood, Fernando, 126. 

Worcester (Mass.) disunion resolutions, 

xlii. 
Working women of Boston, 1. 

Yale College, xvii. 
Yancey, W. L., xlvi. 



FINIS. 



THE 

IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 

BETWEEN 

LABOR AND CAPITAL: 

A BRIEF SUMMARY OF SOME OF THE CHIEF CAUSES AND 

RESULTS OF THE LATE CIVIL WAR IN THE 

UNITED STATES, 

AS PRESENTED IN 

THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

TO 

ADOLPHE GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC'S 
HISTORY OF THE WORKING AND BURGHER CLASSES, 

IN WHICH THE 
ORIGIN, NATURE, AND OBJECTS OF THE MUCH CALUMNIATED 

FRENCH COMMUNE 

ARE HISTORICALLY EXPIjVINED. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

819 & 821 MARKET STREET. 
1872. 



HISTORY OF THE 
WORKING AND BURGHER CLASSES. 

BY M. ADOLPHE GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC, 

PARIS, FRANCE, A. D. 1838. 

TRANSLATED BY BEN. E. GREEN, 

OF DALTON, WHITFIELD CO., GA. 

Published by OLAXTON, EEMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, Philadelphia. 



From the Washington Chronicle. 

This valuable work has been for some time out of print, and copies of it are 
exceedingly rare, therefore an American translation will be welcome. 
From the New Orleans Times. 

Cassagnac wrote this elaborate history in two parts, the first of which is now 
translated ; the second, on the " Noble Classes," is, we believe, extant only in 
the original French. It has not been our fortune before this to meet with the 
work, although at the period of its publication in Paris it commanded attention, 
and has been ever since the source of nearly all the discussions on the great social 
and political questions of the conflict between monarchy and democracy, and 
capital and labor — two elements of strife that, alike in Europe and this country, 
are rapidly assuming portentous shapes, and which cannot be put aside even by 
the most indolent observer. When we opened this volume, we at once remem- 
bered the notices that appeared in one of the French periodicals, and now are 
satisfied that, of its class, it is the most profound and exhaustive. We urge any of 
our citizens who think about the results of business, or the near future of the United 
States, both politically and financially, to buy this volume and ponder its contents. 
From the Trenton Gazette. 

This work of Adolphe Cassagnac is an interesting and instructive work. It 
abounds with classical lore and curious information, and to the student of the 
labor problem is a treasure. 

From the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga. 

This work is an intensely interesting one. The preface of the translator, Mr. 
Ben. E. Green, of this State, is a very elaborate one, setting forth, among other 
propositions, the causes of the late war, the effect of negro slavery in the South, 
the struggle of classes in this as in all other countries, the fusion of elements pro- 
ducing the Republican party, and that emancipation has cheapened labor, reduc- 
ing its wages and diminishing its share of the products. The Translator thinks 
that even Mr. Stephens has not reached the real causes of the war, which are 
claimed to be the "Conflict between Monarchy and Democracy," and the "Irre- 
pressible desire of c.ipital to cheapen labor." In "The Laboring and Burgher 
Classes" are included all the learned professions — all who labor with the brain 
or with the hand, and who wish to live and grow rich by the fruits of their own 
honest industry. De Cassagnac was a student " absorbed in the solution of the 
facts and philosophy of history." He has treated his subject exhaustingly, and 
with great faithfulness as a historian. The work is an exceedingly valuable one, 
and should find its way into every library. The Preface alone is worth the price 
of the book. 



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